Monday, 1 July 2013

Hangover 3, Fast & Furious 6, Star Trek Into Darkness

Well, hello there readers. Firstly an apology from my good self, it’s been a while since my last entry here. Several weeks, days and hours have transpired since I dazzled you with my witty and urbane review of Iron Man 3. I can only say sorry and offer up an excuse. Once you reach the level of celebrity that I have now achieved, your days are filled with public appearances, opening supermarkets, filming adverts for Gucci and Ronseal and doing a lot of work for charity, which as you can imagine doesn’t leave you with much time to sit down and blog.  You, dear reader, can choose to believe that or you can take what’s on offer behind door number two. The simple truth of the matter is I’ve just been the wrong side of busy.
So because of this there will now be a review of the last three films that I have seen in the good old picture house. These films being in no particular order “The Hangover 3”, “Fast & Furious 6” and “Star Trek into Darkness”.

So sit back, relax, take the cat off the hook and put the phone out. I shall start purely at random with The Hangover 3.

The first Hangover film was unleashed into the wild back in the summer of 2009 and due to its box office success a sequel was promptly ordered. The premise of the first film for those not in the know is basically take one stag party, stir in a large portion of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” and then turn up to 11. Whilst turning it up to 11 chuck in a cameo from Mike Tyson, a tiger in a ruined hotel suite and a scene stealing performance from Zach Galifianakis. I happen rather to like this film. It’s widely un-pc in places, doesn’t take itself too seriously and if you squint really hard, put your hands over your ears and make very loud “La La La” noises it is almost possible to forget that there are two films that follow it.
The problem with the follow-ups is that for the second film all they seemed to do was take the plot of the film and just move it lock, stock and barrel to Bangkok. It wasn’t anywhere near as funny as the first and you really got the feeling that all the actors involved were just going through their “contractual obligations” whilst filming it. However it also seemed to put the right figures in the right columns with regards to box office takings and those lovely chaps at Warner Brothers asked the director Todd Phillips to write another screenplay and then threw money at the actors until they said yes. Now the major problem with the third film is that it’s a completely different animal from the first two. It almost borders on black comedy in places, it’s uncomfortable to watch and I spent a lot of the third act sitting in my seat thinking “really?” to myself. It’s set back in Vegas and again has the “Wolfpack” getting themselves caught up, through no fault of their own, with criminal underworld. John Goodman plays the big bad and plays it very well. It’s the sort of performance that he can do on autopilot.
Even after some distance between seeing the film and writing this blog I’m still struggling to find positives about it. The only glimmer of hope I offer you dear reader is that everyone involved with the trilogy, including the recently Oscar nominated Bradley Cooper, has said that this is the end, there will be no more. I’d like to hope this is true but I’m the same way I once saw a certain George Lucas proclaim that there would never be a Star Wars VII, VIII & IV, I doubt it will be…..

Fast & Furious 6. Well where do I start??? I can safely say without too much fear of contradiction that this is not a Merchant Ivory production. It basically, like the Ronseal mentioned before,  does exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re looking for a no nonsense, bang for your buck and leave your brain at the door way to switch off for 130 minutes then look no further. The plot and I do use that word with a wry smile centres around a crew of international mercenary drivers who according to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson need to be taken down. And of course the only people who are good enough to do the aforementioned “down taking” are all in exile around the world. The reason that they are all scattered to the four corners is due to the shenanigans that have  taken place over the course of the previous five films, which I’m happy to report you do not need to see before embarking on film six.
The leader of this band of merry men and women is Vin Diesels “Dominic Toretto”. The Rock offers them all pardons and the chance of a return to normal life and before you can say “mirror, signal, manoeuvre” they find themselves in our very own London causing the sorts of mayhem and destruction that you usually only get from TFL engineering works. There are some great action set pieces in the film including a totally believable car chase through London’s west end with those charming police chaps leaning out of their car windows and using machine guns (wry smile people, wry smile). As well as that there is also a rather over the top action battle that has a tank, bridges blowing up and more handbrake turns than you can shake a set of fluffy dice at. However the big grand finale takes place in Spain. It involves a large cargo carrying plane, several vehicles and without doubt what has to be the longest runway every committed to celluloid. It’s beyond ridiculous. I’m sure it must cross at least three time zones.
That said I did actually enjoy this film. It’s entertaining and frantic and also funny when it tries to be. I will say this as well, whoever the sound engineer was on this film obviously wasn’t getting paid by the hour. They must have gone in to the recording booth and turned all the faders up to maximum and gone home. It’s earth shatteringly loud and you could need fillings replaced after you’ve seen it.   The other little treat it has hidden up its sleeve is an end of credits scene that has the one and only (spoiler alert) Jason Statham being set up as the next baddie for Fast & Furious 7 and given that F&F 6 just had Universals biggest opening weekend since Jurassic Park I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before vehicular warfare once again descends into your nearest multiplex.

Star Trek into Darkness. Ok you lovely people it’s time to be controversial. When it comes it comes franchises that have the word Star in them, I’ve always found myself leaning towards Trek as opposed to Wars (Lights blue touch paper and retires).
Back in 2009 JJ “lens flare” Abrams was given the task of rebooting a Star Trek universe that had seemed to have collapsed under its own weight. Five television series, six if you included the short lived animated series form the 70’s and ten films. The last of which was received with a whimper by its fans. So when Paramount asked Abrams to re-launch the brand many of the diehard fans were up in arms. By his own admission he had never been a fan of the shows but that may have been an advantage as he came in and was given a clean slate to work with. His idea was simple. Take it back to the beginning and show how Kirk, Spock and company first started out. Basic training at Starfleet and how the Infamous Enterprise crew came to be. Then throw in a little bit of time travel so you can have Leonard Nimoy pop up for some much needed words of wisdom. Thankfully it all worked and now four years later we find ourselves with the much anticipated sequel.
One of the criticisms of the first film was the villain was a bit lacklustre. Thankfully the Trek universe has a few adversaries of note to choose from and Abrams went to the top of the list when putting his film together. He then got the very talented Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch to play him and as everyone knows, if you want a bad guy played well, they need to be British. The bad guy in question is Khan (sorry there should have been a spoiler alert there) and Benedict plays him perfectly. He’s a one man weapon of mass destruction and seems hell bent on bringing Starfleet to its knees. Kirk, who has a personal score to settle and co are sent after him and as luck would have it they find him on the Klingon home world. What follows is a giant chess game of life and death. Cat and mouse, move and counter move which at one point actually brings Kirk and Khan together to fight of another oppressor.
At its core it’s a 132 minute rollercoaster of a ride and takes you by the scruff of the neck from the very first scene and doesn’t let up until the credits roll. It’s a credit to Abrams that he manages to pull this off. It’s ticks both the visual and substance boxes and may have gone some way to ease the concerns of the Star Wars fans he’s about to entertain. Episode VII will almost certainly be visually spectacular and will almost certainly have the odd shot of lens flare in it. I just hope he has some input and say with regards to the screenplay as that’s where the previous three Star Wars fell down quite considerably. Star Trek Into Darkness is a great film and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone at Paramount in the not too distant future gave the green light to another series based in the Trek universe….

Hangover 3
Twitter Review:
The Wolfpack are hopefully now on the endangered species list. Not funny, not good and not needed.
#QuitWhilstYoureBehind

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1951261/?ref_=sr_2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUUvJ3jGC4Y

Fast And Furious 6
Twitter Review:
Cars, Guns, Chaos and a smattering of eye candy. Brains not required but ear plugs may be.
#LoudProud&DangerousToKnow

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1905041/?ref_=sr_1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKi5XoeTN0k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JZKEN_vpzY

Star Trek Into Darkness
Twitter Review:
Kirk & Khan "The Rematch". sky box office not required just a truck load of popcorn and put your smile on standy.
#MayTheForceBeWithYou

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/?ref_=sr_1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAEkuVgt6Aw

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