film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Callum Forbes

  • BRWC Spoiler Free Review – Avengers: Infinity War

    BRWC Spoiler Free Review – Avengers: Infinity War

    It’s been the accumulation of ten years and eighteen (yes eighteen) films, but now it’s finally here. Avengers Infinity War, the most anticipated film since the last film you were told to anticipate. I will just say that if I’m being a bit vague with this review it’s because I’m working to avoid spoilers. Like I said, for some it has been a ten year wait, so I will respect those who have not seen it yet. Besides, this is a surprisingly easy film to spoil. It feels like a big even happens every single scene. But maybe that shouldn’t be surprising with a film this big.

    Thanos, that villain who we’ve apparently been waiting for even though he’s only sat in a chair up to this point, has arrived. He wants the infinity stones, six gems with the combined ability to change reality as we know it. The Avengers are out matched. Having splintered apart they must now re-join forces again – as well as joining forces with Doctor Strange, the people of Wakanda and the Guardians of the Galaxy. But still, will that be enough to stop Thanos from wiping out half of all life in the universe?

    The MCU is a colossal mixed bag for me. I do like some, even love a couple of them – but, while there are a couple that I really don’t like, most of them are just aggressively average to me. After a while they start to blend into one. It’s because of this I wasn’t really looking forward to this one. The trailer didn’t help matters. I feel like I’m part of a minority here, but I was not impressed by how this film looked. It looked like another film where the Avengers fight another big bad, call out some quips, make an obscure comic book reference and fight another disposable army with ease. But while the film does end up becoming that, I can’t deny that I got more than I bargained for here.

    This could have easily been a colossal mess. Have you seen the cast alone? It looks like every actor working today has a role. But the Russo brothers, who gave us Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War, somehow pull it off very well. I can’t even begin to imagine what this must have been like. The stress of getting it right must have been unbearable. I feel like if this was written and directed by other Avengers films director Joss Whedon then this would have completely fallen flat. The Russo’s seem to know exactly what they are doing. For the most part at least.

    Not only do we have a huge cast to accommodate, all members giving their usual good performances, but we’ve got characters who other film makers have made – all with different styles and tones. We have a film that features the gritty, serious and occasionally thought-provoking Captain America and also the silly, fun-loving and surreal Guardians of the Galaxy. To avoid this they take a little bit from Thor Ragnarok – in that the tones change depending on which character you are following. This means that everyone is split up for most of the film, with us all following little teams with their own little story-lines which all lead up to the same huge event. This was clearly the best choice for the film to make.

    But one thing that is constant throughout the whole film is how hopeless and depressing it can be. We get our typical heroes getting over powered by the henchman scenes that we’ve come to expect. But then we get these full on dark and upsetting moments. I walked out of the cinema thinking that there are going to be a lot of crying children these next few weeks. I do admire the film for having the gall to do what it does. There are many moments that pleasantly subverted my expectations. An early example is that I wondered how long it would be before Hulk and Thanos fought – turns out it’s at the very beginning and it doesn’t go well. That’s a minor point, but there are more, greater ones.

    But we are still watching a Marvel film. Which means that it’s still a fun little action film at heart. The action is great. The Russo’s, who usually use shaky-cam for their action really tone it down and just let the choreography speak for itself. It also means that the effects are pretty good. They’re great on the Avengers, Thanos and the planets and ships – although the effects on Thanos’ henchmen and some of the explosions did make me wince. It does also mean that the film feels longer than it should be. At over two-and-a-half hours long, it drags at points. There’s one storyline I feel the film could have managed without. There’s also a minor role from a famous television actor, and he is just dreadful in his little amount of screen time.

    But really Infinity War rests, and always has rested on one thing. Is Thanos a good villain? The answer to that would determine how well the film would be taken. I am pleasantly surprised to say that Thanos is certainly one of the best villains of the MCU, and possibly even one of the best villains in a superhero film in general. He’s a great villain. It’s been said that to have a great villain you have to make them sympathetic – while you do oddly sympathise with him at times, I don’t agree with that statement. I think that all you need to do is make them interesting. That’s where Thanos, and other more recent Marvel villains like Killmonger, Vulture, Hela and Ego succeed. Thanos really believes that he’s the good guy. That he’s saving the universe by causing this mass genocide. That’s really interesting and gets you both scared of and fascinated with him. Physically, while he does weirdly look like a purple Homer Simpson, he’s an imposing force that devours the screen whenever he’s on it. Adding to that an amazing performance from the incredible Josh Brolin, selling this character body and soul, and you have a clear winner.

    I have my issues with Infinity War. I didn’t expect much – in some ways it surpassed that, but in others it was exactly what I expected. I will say that I did prefer Black Panther this year. A great villain and a lot of fun riding with the Guardians and Thor again were enough to let me enjoy it. I’m still thinking about the darker moments as well, so there’s a positive too. Other than that, it’s just a darker version of the Marvel films that have come before. The only thing I will say that might lead into spoilers is that this is not a full story – part two is coming next year. That was disappointing for me. If you haven’t already go and see it. I can see this being as divisive as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, particularly come the midway point. Don’t expect the final chapter to Marvels great saga, but do expect another valiant effort from the studio.

  • The BRWC Review: A Quiet Place

    The BRWC Review: A Quiet Place

    I’ve been interested in seeing A Quiet Place since I first heard of it. I like the idea of the concept, the simplicity of it. Starring Emily Blunt, who has been great in many good things lately is a definite bonus. Set not too long into the future, our planet has been invaded by a species of feral aliens who hunt and kill anything living – but only if it makes a sound. As soon as human beings learn this, having found no way of killing the aliens, they take to living life without making a single sound. The film follows a family on a farm, all grieving after loosing a child to the creatures. With grief tearing at them and a new baby on the way, their days are numbered…

    I feel like I’ve entered bit of a mirror universe here. In the same week we saw the release of a horror film from reliably good Blumhouse and another from the reliably bad Platinum Dunes studios. Yet Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare was hot garbage, not even worth viewing ironically. Whereas Platinum Dunes gave us A Quiet Place, a well-made and effective horror film. It’s clear that this is a passion project for writer, director, actor and real-life husband to Emily Blunt John Krasinski.

    There’s effort put into every frame here. If I had to compare this to anything else, I’d compare it to an M. Night Shyamalan film. Here me out – we can say what we will about Shyamalan’s body of work, but there’s no denying that for the most part his films are very well-made in terms of directing, camera and sound. Well, maybe not The Last Airbender and After Earth. It’s the same here. Painstaking detail has been given to how this film looks and sounds. I loved the idea that the usually noisy son has a lot of ambient noise surrounding him, whereas when the cameras on the deaf daughter everything is muffled. I like how the camera works around the creatures – we don’t really see them until a point. This is done by hiding them, but not with editing or dodgy lighting. It’s done by clever framework. There’s either an obstacle in the way or they move too quickly for us to focus on them. It makes the hiding of them feel less cheap.

    It’s also a very well-acted film, made more impressive by the lack of dialogue throughout most of it. It makes you realise how much we need sound in our daily lives. When they want to shout they can’t, they can only sign it. When they are in pain they can’t scream, they have to hold it in. I like the little details here too. They can all use sign-language – because the daughter is deaf, so they would know how to do that anyway. The mother is implied to have been a nurse and the father an electrician, giving reason for their skills. They use sand to muffle their footsteps and lights to send out messages.

    But this is sadly where the film flounders. When we are shown all these details it makes us point out more that they either missed or got wrong. Questions like where they got so much sand are easily ignored, but less so is how they have electricity. The only way I can think of is by generator, but we all know how much sound those make. We’re also not given a gage for what the creatures can hear, which does make the film feel a little inconsistent. We are told that they can’t hear you if you are surrounded by noise, such as by a waterfall. We are also shown the kids playing monopoly with cotton pieces so as not to make clattering sounds on the board, implying that the creatures will hear that. But then we have people getting spotted when fireworks or car engines are going and creatures not hearing a woman breathing heavily from labour pains.

    On that note, I don’t really understand why they are having a baby. I can understand it if they played up the element that it was to replace the one they lost, but they don’t really. We all see the problem here – the birthing will be bad enough. But even after that babies can be the noisiest things. In a world like the one they set up it sounds like far too much a risk for them to take. A Quiet Place just suffers from trying to be a little too big for its boots. It wants to act smart, being an effective horror film in the process. It reminds me of The Descent that way. But while it does manage to achieve the latter goal it forgets something – something that The Descent didn’t, and what made it the far greater film. It’s that at the end of the day it’s just a monster film. Adding too many details to a film that ends up being a chase movie with a creature is not the smartest way to go about it. It’s all enjoyable, but the little niggles do start to stack after a while.

    I liked A Quiet Place. I have issues with it, and I don’t think it’s worthy of a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I did still find it to be a suspenseful and enjoyable horror film. They work well with a restrictive concept and it feels as long as it needed to feel. The craftsmanship is great and I love how it felt throughout it. If you can look past some logical errors and not ask why people stand still when they make a noise, then you’ll have a very fun time with it. See it and see if you’d survive in this situation. I know I wouldn’t!

  • Rampage: The BRWC Review

    Rampage: The BRWC Review

    The last time Dwayne Johnson starred in a videogame adaptation we got Doom. I guess the only way is up from there. I’ve never played the Ramage games, but I get the gist of them; you’re a giant monster destroying a city – there’s not much more to say on that. I would call it an odd choice to adapt, but when we’ve recently been seeing new Godzilla and King Kong films, not to mention Pacific Rim and by looks of things the upcoming Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom and The Meg, I suppose this has come out at the right time for it.

    Dwayne Johnson is a primatologist working at San Diego Zoo, where he cares for an albino gorilla he saved from poachers years back. However, a scientific experiment falls from the sky and infects the gorilla, George, who grows in size and aggression. The government gets involved when George gets too destructive, but that is the least of everyone’s worries. The experiment has also infected a wolf in Wyoming and a crocodile in the Everglades. All three soon converge on Chicago and their rampage threatens to level the entire city. The race is on to either cure the monsters or stop them at all costs.

    Rampage was directed by Brad Payton, who has worked with Johnson twice before – Journey 2 The Mysterious Island and San Andreas. Thankfully Rampage is definitely the stronger of the three films, albeit not by much. The truest thing that could be said about Rampage is that it is at the very least an efficient monster movie. Certainly towards the end, it knows what you want to see and so goes about delivering it to you. It’s a film with little surprises and one-dimensional characters, but also one with some good, silly performances and dumb fun action.  Rampage’s saving grace is also it’s downfall.

    The ending is fantastic. It’s silly, over the top and filled with non-stop carnage – exactly what you want to see in a film with giant monsters attacking large cities. But that only happens at the end. Don’t get me wrong, there is action before then – including a pretty fun scene with the wolf in a forest – but it is still a little too much of a wait to get there. I don’t know who decided to make it a rule that when making a film with multiple monsters, that they should only fight at the end. It’s a bad rule and has been the Achilles heel of so many films like this. We want to see them duking it out for a good chunk of the film, with the story and character moments coming out on the in-between parts. Without that, you do get a little bored and can only hope that the end is worth the wait.

    The acting is very silly in Rampage. Dwayne Johnson is still charismatic, but he does feel like he has less to do in this film than he usually does. Not as bad as Naomie Harris mind you. She’s trying but this script gives her literally nothing outside of a tragic backstory and a scene where she breaks into a laboratory. Other than that, the villains are like old Power Rangers or Thunderbirds villains. No character outside of being evil, nothing to do outside of being evil and having no motivation to be evil, outside of that they just are. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, though, takes the cake here. He’s a government agent who likens himself to a cowboy – and he’s still chewing the scenery, even long after he’s eaten the whole film. It’s all that special, endearing kind of silly, where the actors and clearly having fun and you are enjoying the passion they bring to it. It is just strange that our human characters are more like cartoons than the CG monsters that are destroying buildings.

    Outside of the film being very grey to look at and being surprisingly violent at times, there are some choices made that I don’t think worked. In the villains’ office there’s an actual Rampage arcade machine, which is weirdly out of place. There’s an animal rights message that comes out of nowhere and is probably a little too dark in tone for the rest of the film. The games also had this little detail in them – when the monsters die they shrink down and are revealed to have been human all along. If the film took that element then maybe a little more could have been added to the film dramatically. Not that you can’t sympathise with animals, but it might have made things feel more intense for the characters. Another reason to cure them before the army kill them, that sort of thing. The most distracting design choice was the creature designs. The gorilla looks like a giant gorilla, fair enough – but the wolf has spikes and can glide on small wings and the crocodile has tusks, a club-tail and gills. It was just very distracting – either keep them all as big animals or make the gorilla a monster too. I know it was for the ending, but that only made the ending more predictable to me.

    Rampage is easily one of the better videogame adaptations – which is really just a nice way of saying that it’s mediocre at best. The action is a lot of fun, as are the performances. But you do have to sit through a lot of uninteresting stuff to get there. I am confident that one day we will get a great videogame movie, but it’s not this day. An efficient monster movie. If that is all you want to see then you won’t be disappointed, but if you want anything more than that, then you’re a little out of luck.

  • Review: Snake And Mongoose

    Review: Snake And Mongoose

    I’ve never been the biggest fan of sports such as drag racing or the like. Therefore, the histories and rivalries of such a sport are lost on me. I actually didn’t know about James Hunt until I saw Rush back in 2013, that’s how out of touch with such people and events I am. It should go as no surprise then that I don’t usually watch sports-based films. I love them when they are done well, such as the aforementioned Rush or Rocky. Now I have seen Snake & Mongoose, which I had no idea what it was about until I saw it.

    Snake and Mongoose follows the Drag Racing rivalry between Don Prudhomme – aka The Snake due to his quick driving reflexes – and Tom McEwen – aka Mongoose due to his inherit rivalry against Prudhomme. Set in the 1960’s, it tells the tales of how they raced each other, how they saw each other and how they both felt off the tracks as well. And how they both took the two animals, the natural enemies of each over, and applied them to their own situation.

    The main reason I brought up my personal issues with sports films is because I do feel like I should take some responsibility for my own lack of enjoyment with this one. While I did find the characters and in some ways the history to be overall interesting, I just could not find the film as a whole as interesting or engaging as it would clearly like to be. As a film Snake & Mongoose is not a bad one. It does have some interesting moments in it. I did enjoy the two lead characters, and the subtle differences between them. Snake for example drives because he feels like he needs to – his life is to race and win, and he could very well loose his purpose and die if he did not drive. Whereas Mongoose sees it more as a career – he does still love racing and winning, but he’s more level-minded about it and sees the business side as being more important than Snake does. Elements like this do add to the film and do bring up some interesting conflicts.

    The performances weren’t bad either, although they also didn’t stand out. They bring a decent amount of charisma and feel very natural in their actions and discussion. But there is something strange about what they say. I’m not sure if this is how they deliver their lines or if it’s a problem with the script but the dialogue does sometimes come off as preachy or trying to push some form of character-driven agenda. One scene for example features our characters discussing what it means to strive for a dream and what it means to be practical. It’s not a bad scene but the point is just hammered across it felt a little distracting because of it. There’s a scene with Tim Blake Nelson, who made me laugh – which was the intention – due to his fun delivery. This one worked because it demonstrated the art of showmanship that the sport revels in, and that it is even carried on behind the closed doors to an extent. Moments like this worked better than the overblown discussions of following a dream.

    The only other stand out element was the use of real footage from drag racing. It was an interesting idea and it did give the film an almost documentary feel to it. This does conflict a little bit with the scenes where actors performed, as it feels like a different kind of film making taking place. Still, it was an interesting little experiment on the film makers part that could possibly be better incorporated into other such films.

    Overall Snake & Mongoose was an interesting and fairly well-made film, with some nice cinematography and editing to boost it up. It just wasn’t for me. It already had an uphill battle with me, but I feel that people who tend to like this sort of film will thoroughly enjoy it. It’s an interesting look at a rivalry I certainly had no idea about before. And even if it hits you over the head with it, the message about dreams and practicality is a good one. Sit down and take it for a ride, you may find yourself enjoying the show.

  • Western: Callum’s Take

    Western: Callum’s Take

    You don’t often get a title that gets right to the point in telling us the theme of a film. Western is very clearly a film influenced by the old spaghetti western film from the days of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone. While this is an update, set in modern day Bulgaria, it still follows the same story tropes as those classic films did. Everything from the feel of isolation in a changing world, to the dust swept settings, right down to the mostly silent, outsider protagonist. 

    Meinhard (portrayed by Meinhard Neumann) is a stoic German worker for higher, taken on with some other Germans to help with the construction of a hydro-plant in Bulgaria. The work is tiring, stressful and only adequately prepared for them – tensions are high enough from that alone. What doesn’t help is that the German and Bulgarian workers are constantly at odds. The culture differences and language barrier constantly put the groups at odds. When the Germans start getting a little too involved with the people within the village, the tentative peace between them threatens to break.

    Much like the films that influenced it, Western is very much a slow burn story. But that is exactly how good tension is made. You have no real idea as to what the outcome will be. No, you don’t believe that this will end in a big showdown, guns blazing and long, epic faceoffs and stares. It’s made clear from the get go that this is not that kind of film. But you are tense nether the less because this does feel like real life. There’s very little gloss to what you see, to the point where it at times feels like footage someone shot on a handheld. I mean that in the best possible way – the same way that made such films as District 9 stand out when they were released. This alone is all we need to know how dangerous these prejudices can be, and how they could end.

    https://vimeo.com/217995169

    For a film that is clearly made on a low budget, it is very well shot and edited. Every scene lets the characters and scenery breathe. Bulgaria has some lovely buildings and landscapes to it and – while it doesn’t feel very tourist-y – it does add to the atmosphere. The hot sun, the rising tensions, and also the kind wonderment of its people and villages. The visuals are what tell most of this films story. Were they any lesser, then it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well as an overall film. The acting does help, with very good performances from its cast all around. Meinhard in particular worked as a nice nod to the days of Wayne and Eastwood, with a little bit of Robert Shaw in there for good measure.

    At times Western does get really slow. And I do mean really slow. Moments like this are few, but they do happen. However, my biggest issue with the film came after having watched it. It didn’t really strike me until I was about to start writing this that Western is not a very memorable film. Despite moderately enjoying it at the time, there was very little about it that stuck with me. It’s a shame because I do feel that films like this deserve to be seen. Perhaps it’s because I am unfamiliar with the region, having never visited myself, or that I know little to nothing about German/Bulgarian relations, but the story didn’t feel like it was gripping me as well as it should do.

    In the end Western deserves to be seen. If anyone is aspiring to be a film maker or has an affinity for those spaghetti westerns then I highly recommend it. It just wasn’t for me. It’s not so much because not much happens in Western – it’s more because it didn’t leave the impact it had intended to with me. There’s little more I can say, if you get the chance to see then do so. I just won’t be revisiting it.