A Simple Favour

Official Australian release date: 13/9/18. Viewed: 13/10/18.

Director: Paul Feig

Actors: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells

Genre: Mystery / Drama

Rating: M

     

‘A Simple Favour’ is a seemingly-simple story of an odd-couple of friends – straight-laced Stephanie (Kendrick) and brash Emily (Lively) – who become friends after their school-aged sons become friends. When Emily goes missing, Stephanie helps Emily’s husband Sean (Golding) though the tough time. This is when clues and odd things begin happening and the mystery starts to unfold.

It’s not really a traditional thriller/disappearance film, with the film following Stephanie, rather than detectives searching for Emily. The film’s not overly somber and has a few laughs – it is Feig after all. There’s a few twists, but nothing exceptionally original. It’s certainly no ‘Gone Girl’.

The film succeeds almost purely on the back of the charismatic performances of Kendrick & Lively. Both are easy and fun to watch, alone and together. Golding (from ‘Crazy Rich Asians’) is well used and the score throughout is interesting and fun. Nothing groundbreaking, but an enjoyable tale.

Overall: Decent murder-mystery.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

First Man

Official Australian release date: 11/10/18. Viewed: 11/10/18.

Director: Damien Chazelle

Actors: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Corey Stoll

Genre: Biopic / Drama

Rating: M

     

‘First Man’ is the story of Neil Armstrong (Gosling) and how he became the first human to walk on the moon. It’s amazing that after almost 50 years, this film’s never been made before – but we’ve had ‘Space Cowboys’! While largely focused on Armstrong, the film does a good job of showing how essential all the other NASA engineers and astronauts were during the 1960s to making the Apollo 11 mission a success.

The film spends almost as much time exploring Neil’s relationships with his family – wife Janet (Foy) & sons Eric (Winters) and Mark (Blodgett). They certainly go through their share of tragedies and funerals, making the film quite melodramatic. White (Clarke), Aldrin (Stoll) & Collins (Haas) don’t get that much to do. It almost gets bogged down in politics in the middle too. While Gosling’s OK, he comes across a quite bland and boring – possibly intentionally. I think he was going for humble, but ended up as mild.

The film’s at it’s best when it’s focusing on space – rather than watching the rocket launch from distance, like on TV, we’re stuck in the cockpit with the astronauts as they’re shut in, and it’s quite claustrophobic. But instead of cutting away, we experience lift-off from their point of view – all the noise, shaking and velocity. It’s annoying there’s often a black screen for seconds at a time, but it’s realistic for space. The score’s OK and you do get to spend some time on the moon. It’s certainly no ‘Apollo 13’ or ‘Gravity’, but has it’s moments.

Overall: Not overly engaging historical drama

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

Searching

Official Australian release date: 13/9/18. Viewed: 6/10/18.

Director: Aneesh Chaganty

Actors: John Cho, Debra Messing, Michelle La, Joseph Lee

Genre: Drama / Mystery

Rating: M

   

‘Searching’ is very much a film of the times – an inventive concept of always being viewed through a screen –computer, phone, FaceTime, YouTube, TV, etc. It’s directed by first-time director Chaganty, who’s only 27, and does make you realise how much screen-time occupies our lives these days. Thankfully, rather than a film with just this gimmick, it’s actually a well-made mystery/thriller.

David (Cho) is struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Margot (La), after his wife passes away (nice montage to start the film). As I imagine most teenagers do these days, she mostly communicates with him by text, so once he hasn’t heard from her for more than a day, he starts to get worried. Detective Vick (Messing) and Peter (Lee), his brother, get involved in trying to find out who her friends were, via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

The film does well to lead you along David’s logic as he’s trying to find his daughter and Cho is good at showing his anguish. There’s a few good twists and some nice tension at times. Great final 15min – the entire film’s well-paced and keeps you on the hook throughout.

Overall: Interesting and unique mystery.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Venom

Official Australian release date: 4/10/18. Viewed: 4/10/18.

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Actors: Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate

Genre: Sci-Fi / Action

Rating: M

   

From the director of ‘Zombieland’ comes ‘Venom’, a non-Marvel Cinematic Universe film, featuring Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis – but no Spider-Man (who’s over in the MCU). Since it’s a movie about an alien (“symbiote”) turning Eddie Brock (Hardy) into a superhero/antihero, you should suspend disbelief and expectations at the start. The symbiote is brought to Earth by Drake (Ahmed), a Branson/Musk-type who wants to colonize space. He’s obviously evil.

Anne (Williams) is Eddie’s ex and has some scenes, as does Skirth (Slate), who’s experimenting on the symbiotes. We finally get to see Venom about 50min in, after quite a bit of unnecessary build-up, and all hell essentially breaks loose. There’s a pretty good car chase – we’re obviously in San Francisco so the cars can get plenty of air – and some solid action/fight scenes.

While it’s all quite daft, and some of the scenes have the camera moving way too fast, overall it’s Hardy, his charisma, and how he interacts with Venom that make it enjoyable and not totally stupid. The CGI’s quite good and it’s fun to see some of his powers. There’s a few jokes – but definitely don’t expect another ‘Deadpool’.

Overall: Fun enough, but not spectacular.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.