Category: REVIEWS

Here is where you would find our film reviews on BRWC. We look at on trailers, shorts, indies and mainstream. We love movies!

Sausage Party: The BRWC Review

I have noticed a trend in my reviews of late and it has perturbed me. I have always been an extremely positive person, especially when it comes to movies, and my fellow reviewer and podcast partner Daryl will attest to the fact that every film I saw I would see the good in. Now back to my recent trend, I am seeing reviews for films either getting 4/5 stars or 1/2 stars across the board and I end up right slap bang in the middle with a 3 star review (The Shallows, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters, Secret Life of Pets, X-Men Apocalypse, to name just a few). I can now add Sausage Party to that list and I’m not overjoyed about it.

Please let me explain. I’m a big fan of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, have been ever since Superbad and I have enjoyed pretty much all their output consistently. The trailers for this movie were spot on! Hilarious, inspired and crude as one could hope from these gentlemen! I tried so hard not to get my hopes up but inevitably failed and I was excited to see it today.

You don’t need to hear about the story as if you’re reading this I’m sure you already know it. What I will say is that this film has some very funny lines, some set pieces that you won’t forget in a hurry and a final act that is so depraved yet seemed like the only logical way to end the arc we have been complicit in for the previous hour. Having said all that I still found the film to be distinctly middling. I come from a background of loving adult animation, from the big hitters like South Park and Family Guy to the more underground and cult hits like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Space Ghost and Sealab 2021 and they all have been doing this stuff for years. It’s great to have it on the big screen and all but as far as animated comedy goes this certainly doesn’t break the mould.

The voice acting is great and I really loved Michael Cera, Kristen Wiig, Edward Norton, Nick Kroll et al. The characters, although almost entirely simply racial stereotypes, all had their jokes that landed and that is important in a film like this. The story hints at its underlying ideas about religion and diversity but I doubt the cinema-going audience at large are going to care about that when they just want to see a burrito cornhole a donut at the end of the day.

To wrap this up, I laughed quite a bit, winced a few times, enjoyed the filmic references, and I’m glad this film got made. If you’re a fan of Rogen/Goldberg productions then I’m sure you’ll find lots to enjoy. It’s not a classic and it’s not terrible, it just is! I don’t know what is happening to my sensibilities of late but the films I absolutely adore (The Nice Guys, Green Room, The Neon Demon) and despise (Batman Vs Superman, Special Correspondents, The Do-Over) throughout the year are getting fewer and farther between and more often than not the films just leave me neutral.

Somebody help!

21st August 2016
Doomed: The Untold Story Of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four – Review

The Fantastic Four have had a tough time of it at the cinema, especially compared to Marvel’s myriad other properties. The troubles of Fox’s much maligned reboot from last year are well documented; reports of a difficult shoot and insidious studio interference were followed by a critical clobbering, and audiences disappeared quicker than Sue Storm. Hardcore fans have even clamoured for a rights deal to be brokered allowing the fearless foursome to join Marvel’s all-conquering Cinematic Universe, as Sony’s Spider-man did following a less than amazing sequel.

It seems timely, then, to see this documentary’s insight into low-budget schlock legend Roger Corman’s ill-fated and forgotten adaptation from the early 90s. Dismissed by Stan Lee and disowned by Marvel, the doomed movie had the plug pulled by the powers that be just days before its premiere.

On a tight schedule and even tighter budget, the film was never intended to compete with contemporary comic book blockbusters like Tim Burton’s Batman movies. Shot in a pest-infested warehouse that had been condemned by the fire department, on sets that had been recycled from Carnousaur, Corman’s bargain-bin answer to Jurassic Park, Fantastic Four nevertheless boasted a cast and crew that were committed to creating a film as best they could on limited means.

While it may now look more Danger 5 than Fantastic 4, it’s an endearing effort, and this documentary displays the passion and integrity of the cast and crew. Principal cast members even organised and funded their own publicity tour, including appearances at comic book conventions and children’s hospitals.

Despite the circumstances, the cast and crew members interviewed here showed little bitterness – just fond memories of a fun film. Having never been given a chance to see it themselves, some were even happy to buy bootlegged tapes on ebay.

While Doomed…’s end reveal may not feel as super-villainous as intended, and the occasionally stretched runtime might benefit from a television-friendly cut, this documentary is a sad but sweet underdog story for film fans.

19th August 2016
The BRWC Review: Swallows And Amazons

Swallows and Amazons is Arthur Ransome’s classic children’s book brought back to the big screen once more in 2016. It will make you nostalgic for your own childhood pre-mobile phones and Pokemon Go. Full of adventure, childhood innocence and battle between boys and girls – it is a joy to watch and is captivating for the entire 1 hr 33 mins of screen time. Although the added spy drama is a distraction. It didn’t need sexing up

For those not familar with Arthur Ransome’s classic, Swallows and Amazons is about the Walker family made up of their mother, Mrs Walker (Kelly Macdonald) and her four children. They live down South and head up to a cottage run by Mr Jackson (Harry Enfield) and Mrs Jackson (Jessica Hynes) for the summer. Mr Walker is never seen as he is away in Hong Kong and is a Captain in the navy. Here at the Lakes the children are free to lark around and set off on adventure in Mr Jackson’s dinghy, Swallow, to the small eyot or lake island in the middle of the lake. They have Mrs Jackson’s cake, a hamper full of food (although lost in the water during the journey to the island lake) and hearts full of adventure. However, when they arrive at the island it has already been claimed by the Amazons: Nancy (Seren Hawkes) and Peggy (Hannah Jayne Thorp) who already own the island. The children decide to have a boat race to decide who can rightfully claim the island – Amazons or Swallows.

Swallows and Amazons reminds us of a time when children were allowed to roam free and the only limit on imagination and adventure was your own. Adults watching will wistfully think how can I disconnect from the outside world. Although it is not all rose tinted spectacles in Andrea Gibb’s screenplay we now have an added spy element. One could say that the train espionage is necessary in order to move the narrative along although it does sort of cast a shadow and dampens the wonderful childhood innocence especially when John Walker is holding a gun against Lazlov. Swallows and Amazons has been sexed up unnecessarily. Pirates, Amazons and children attempting to cook and look after themselves should be enough but now a spy adventure and cold war element has been added to the story. Also one of the Walker children’s name has been changed from Titty to Tatty. Maybe children in 2016 are too innocent to hear the name titty rather than tatty.

I vaguely recollect the book and for those who haven’t read it they will be happy enough with this and the added drama. For those who have, the tinkering with names and adding the spy element might send them overboard. For me Swallows and Amazons is about a childhood holiday not coming of age. Nonetheless, with the summer holidays it is a great distraction from 2016 and may even encourage some to take up sailing. Also it is just the right length of film and no lulls. Rafe Spall as Captain Flint is wonderful and the child actor playing Roger Walker encapsulates the very essence of this wonderful children’s classic book – innocence and adventure.

Swallows and Amazons opens in cinemas across the UK on Friday 19 August.

18th August 2016
Raiders! The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2016): Review

By Last Caress.

Ah, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981). Who can forget it?

Indy, the tarantulas, swapping that bag of sand out for that golden idol, the infamous “Big Ball” chase, the natives chasing Indy to the plane, the iconic John Williams score (Tan ta-tan tah! Tan, ta-taah!), that silly tart with “I love you” scrawled on her eyelids, slimy Denholm Elliott, Marion the spunky ex-girlfriend, the slimy Nazi bad guy, Marion’s Nepalese bar going up in flames, Cairo, that little bastard spy monkey, the famously improvised bit where an under-the-weather Harrison Ford elects to shoot the sword-swinging tough guy rather than engage him, the slimy French archaeologist (there were a lot of slimy buggers in Raiders of the Lost Ark, weren’t there?), Tanis, the Staff of Ra, the map room, “Snakes… Why’d it have to be snakes?”, the Ark of the Covenant, highly improbable escape from an unlikely tomb full of reptiles, exploding airplanes, truck chases, Marion ‘hilariously’ hitting Indy in the face with a full-length mirror, then asking him where it doesn’t hurt so she can kiss him there, and the silly sod completely misses a trick and points to his bloody elbow, the secret base in the Aegean Sea, opening up the Ark, “Shut your eyes Marion, don’t look at it!”, swirling angels of death, dead nazis, shrunken heads, melting heads, exploding heads…

Ah.

I never really liked Raiders of the Lost Ark, if I’m honest. Too busy, too improbable. I was a one-franchise-only kind of guy, that franchise was Star Wars (Lucas, 1977), and Han Solo was WAY cooler than this, thought I. I was nine. I’ll tell you who DID like Raiders of the Lost Ark, though: Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb. Three boys from Biloxi, Mississippi, a year older than I was at the time and enraptured by Raiders from the first frame to the last. So in love were they that it struck them to honour their favourite movie by recreating it themselves, shot for shot. The fact that they were but a trio of ten year-olds didn’t seem to faze them but then again of course, at that age, nothing ever does. With a little help from their friends they began shooting the following Summer, and continued shooting every subsequent Summer until they wrapped in 1989. They shot out of sequence as circumstances dictated and, as a result of their filming throughout their pubescent years, character ages and appearances differ wildly from scene to scene. Beards and breasts wax and wane. Voices crack, break, then unbreak. No matter. None of that’s important. What matters is the degree to which these kids replicated those scenes, scenes which – let’s not forget – were initially brought to us courtesy of the twin cinematic towers of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, no less. The ingenuity on display ranges from the cute to the frankly stunning, and they got every scene replicated bar one: the fight ‘twixt Harrison Ford as Indy and Pat Roach as an imposing bald Nazi, beneath the wings of an unchocked, spinning variant on the Horten Ho 229 jet wing. Now, that movie – Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation – is pretty hard to find since it contravenes every copyright law in the land and LucasFilm only generally permit its public screening for charity events and such, but Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made by Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen is the next best thing, chronicling not only the reminiscences of Messrs. Strompolos, Zala, Lamb and the friends and relatives who helped make Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation happen (including horror maestro Eli Roth, a fan of the original tape who passed it to a suitably impressed Steven Spielberg), but also chronicling the lads’ attempts, decades later, to get that unreplicated scene under the Flying Wing shot via a Kickstarter project.

Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made is a feel-good film, pure and simple, chock full of the requisite ups and downs one would expect from such a movie. FAR more interesting to me than the movie upon which those three young boys hung so much, it’s a real-life Son of Rambow (Jennings, 2007) shot through with the heart of Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Gervasi, 2008) and liberally sprinkled with the teenage wide-eyed wonder of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (that man Spielberg again, 1982).

Didn’t make me like Raiders of the Lost Ark any more, though. It’s magic, but not that magic.

Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made is available now on Video On Demand.

www.raidersdoc.com

18th August 2016
The Shallows: Review

This is the absolute dictionary definition of a mixed bag! I had heard the hype, I had seen the trailers, I had faith in Blake Lively and I was so prepared to be terrified by this movie, and I was! I was also made to laugh at the absolutely terrible script, the crowbarred in back story and the utter ridiculousness of the shark’s capabilities!

I’ll start with the good. The middle act of this movie is sheer terror! I was fist clenched and white knuckled the whole time. Insanely well shot footage that is edited with the kind of heart-thumping, breath stopping skills I’ve only experienced in recent memory in Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room from earlier this year.

There is no such thing as hyperbole when explaining how tense some of these scenes play out and I honestly believe that if the back story had been minimised a bit and these cat and mouse (or shark and human) shenanigans had been extended then we would be looking at a contender for scariest film of the year here!

The other factor that really pulls this film together is Blake Lively! Who would have thought it? She has put in some decent acting work along the way in what little we have currently seen of her on the big screen however she really carries this film by being the only character in the piece for more than 5 minutes. It’s a lot of screaming and grunting in pain whilst in a bikini but she sells it and she deserves all the attention she is getting for her job here.

The film also flies (or swims) along at a pace we don’t often see anymore. Clocking in at just over 86 minutes with credits is pretty impressive and it really works. Jodie Foster’s Money Monster did it earlier this year to great effect and The Shallows succeeds in very much the same way. A short rush of blood to the head that leaves you to consider the carnage after the fact.

A final quick mention goes to the seagull with the broken wing that Nancy befriends. Not since Black Phillip in Robert Egger’s The Witch has an animal demanded such admiration of the audience. I won’t spoil the name of said seagull but it is the only comedic beat in this movie and it works very well.

Now onto the bad. The script is stupendously silly! The basic premise is a medical student called Nancy (Lively) has dropped out of school and gone to a beach in Mexico to surf where her Mum used to go when she was her age. Her mum has passed away recently due to some form of cancer and the world doesn’t make sense to Nancy anymore, much to the chagrin of her father and sister who Nancy spends the first act of this film FaceTiming for what seems like forever. Then she is left alone to surf and this crazy shark attacks out the blue, leaving her with nothing but her medical knowledge and sheer will to survive (which she got from her Mother’s fight with cancer).

That in itself isn’t a terrible setup however the conversations she has, with her family, with herself, with the seagull, are so cringeworthily bad that it really made me miss the presence of the shark again. I get that this is a modern take on a B-movie, and it probably isn’t as bad as the Sharknado franchise although I can’t speak to them as I actually haven’t checked those out yet, however I can’t help but feel that if the exposition wasn’t so heavily laid out for us like the idiots we are so clearly thought to be, then the film could have really be elevated to something more than just popcorn shocks.

The last point I want to make I will try to do so without spoiling anything however, some of the actions both Nancy and the shark make in the final third of this movie were so jaw-droppingly insane that a lot of my tension turned to laugh out loud mocking at the incredulity of it all. This is on a par with Renny Harlin’s 1999 classic Deep Blue Sea in terms of a shark having intelligence enough to plan different stages of attack both above and below the water. Again, I realise this is a B-movie feature however it is set up as quite a realistic turn of events and ends in a way that had me literally palming my face!

So, to sum up… This gets a recommendation from me due to a great performance from Blake Lively, some truly wonderful cinematography from Flavio Martinez Labiane mixed with top notch editing from Joel Negron that result in some of the most intense and scary scenes i’ve seen all year. It could have been so much more if Anthony Jaswinski’s script had been thrown in the bin and some thought had gone into the words that were coming out of character’s mouths. I will watch this film again for sure, hopefully with a large group of people and with beer involved. Until then though, please let me know what you thought!

17th August 2016