Pitch Perfect 2 (May 2015)

Official Australian release date: 7/5/15. Viewed: 10/5/15.

Director: Elizabeth Banks

Actors: Anna Kendrick, Hailee Steinfeld, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow

Genre: Comedy

Rating: M

‘Pitch Perfect 2’ (rare in the fact that it doesn’t have a sub-title!) is a decent sequel to the surprise 2012 hit comedy about a university a capella group. This film is obviously aimed at females and is going after a younger audience, introducing 18-year-old Emily (Steinfeld) into the mix now – probably to allow a third film in the series. However, these don’t make it a bad film – still plenty of enjoyable moments throughout.

There’s probably less of a focus on the singing this time round, because – let’s face it – a capella isn’t really that exciting and can get old pretty quick. Especially with some of the rival teams – “Das Sound Machine” – and some of the terrible song choices (depending on your point-of-view, obviously). This is usually a good thing, as it gives Amy (Wilson) a chance to drop more quick-witted remarks and have more awkwardness with Bumper (DeVine) and even Becca (Kendrick) has some funny moments with her new boss (Keegan-Michael Key). But the best bits are still between the commentators – Elizabeth Banks (also her first time directing) & John Michael Higgins – plenty of hilarious lines and inappropriate comments.  

It’s a little too long (almost two hours), has a few redundant scenes and is very predictable, but you’re going to get what you expect – lots of laughs, some young-adult-what-does-the-future-hold musing and plenty of extras in a Louisiana field pretending it’s a Danish festival! I wish the original song (‘Flashlight’) wasn’t by Jessie J, but there’s still some decent songs in it.

Overall: Up-tempo feel-good fun.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (April 2015)

Official Australian release date: 23/4/15. Viewed: 23/4/15.

Director: Joss Whedon

Actors: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, James Spader

Genre: Action / Adventure

Rating: M

Avengers 2 starts off very fast-paced – you’re already in the midst of a battle and one of the first exchanges is a hilarious back-and-forth between Iron Man (Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Evans). It at once sets the scene for a great action film, but also helps to quickly re-introduce characters and their personalities. It’s not essential to have seen the first movie, or even the ‘Thor’, ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Captain America’ films (and even ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’), but they definitely help to add another layer of nuance and understanding to some events/characters.

The plot is pretty straight forward – Iron Man wants to protect the world by having his automated suits everywhere. This inadvertently creates artificial intelligence, which turns out to be Ultron (Spader) – who wants to protect Earth by helping it to evolve. This obviously involves wiping out the human species! The Avengers can’t handle him – and with Scarlet Witch (Olsen) and Quicksilver (Taylor-Johnson/Kick-Ass) on his side (before they see his true intentions) – they have to re-group and learn to all work together again. The introduction of Vision (Bettany) is handled well and is a welcome one for future films.

One of the best aspects of this film is the characterisation – each Avenger gets some backstory and exposition, not just fight scenes. Hawkeye (Renner) probably comes off the best here, since he’s often overlooked – he is after all just a guy who’s a good archer! The Black Widow (Johansson) and Hulk (Ruffalo) ‘romance’ is odd and new, but doesn’t necessarily work. However, it’s good seeing Thor (Hemsworth), Iron Man and Captain America work as part of a team – especially when Thor and “Cap” combine to take out dozens of enemies at once!

           

Spader’s voice is great as the voice of discontent with the human species. While the ending is a little reminiscent of ‘Superman Returns’, the film takes you on an entertaining ride through the Marvel universe – I still look forward to the next instalment(s)!

Overall: Not perfect, but still an extremely enjoyable superhero flick.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

Get Hard (March 2015)

Official Australian release date: 26/3/15. Viewed: 31/3/15.

Director: Etan Cohen

Actors: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Alison Brie, Craig T. Nelson

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Get Hard’ is a straightforward comedy film – rich white guy gets sentenced to jail for fraud, asks black associate to help him prepare for prison life, hijinks ensue. Obviously, it helps when you have two great comedic leads – Ferrell as James, the meek banker, and Hart as Darnell, the car-wash operator trying to support his family. Hart’s on a bit of a roll, film-wise, but this was not quite as enjoyable as ‘The Wedding Ringer’, but much better than ‘Ride Along’.

The two stars work so well together, with ultra-short Hart’s hyper-energy toned down a little and ultra-tall Ferrell playing a meek, polite man-child. It’s not too crass, but there is a bit of swearing as Ferrell tries to learn ‘smack talk’, which is hilarious. Also – too much of his butt, but that’s why it’s funny I guess! It’s at least counter-balanced by Brie (Annie from ‘Community’) looking great in a corset.

Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as the 30-day countdown until his imprisonment proceeds, with some nice play on stereotypes throughout. A decent support cast – needed more Ron Funches! – not too long and just ridiculous enough to not get too stupid. Not the best comedy you’ll ever see, but far from the worst.

Overall: Enjoyable, simple comedy.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Chappie (March 2015)

Official Australian release date: 12/3/15. Viewed: 14/3/15.

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Actors: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Yo-Landi Visser

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: MA

‘Chappie’ is Blomkamp’s third film, after ‘District 9’ and ‘Elysium’ and easily sits between them in terms of quality. It’s a near-future tale of artificial intelligence and how this could play out on a small and large scale. It’s nothing new (‘Terminator’, ‘Short Circuit’), but it is done in an interesting way. Deon (Patel) develops “scouts” (basically literal robocops), which Vincent (Jackman) wants to supersede with his mech-warriors. When Deon creates an AI “conscious”, Chappie is “born”.

Unfortunately for Chappie, his “parents” are Ninja & Yo-Landi from ‘Die Antwoord’, a South African rap-rave “band” (thanks Wikipedia. If you haven’t heard them before, don’t bother!) I can only assume Blomkamp loves their music (god knows how) and asked them to be in this as a favour. Their faux-gangster act forces Chappie into doing things he doesn’t want to and disaster ensues. Jackman is adequately douchey as the Aussie-redneck, Sigourney Weaver is massively underutilised, Patel is solid and Copley is great as the South African-accented voice of Chappie, providing most of the laughs due to his interpretation of sayings.

The visual effects – particularly of Chappie and the other scouts - is superb. There’s not too much philosophising on the impacts AI could have on humans/the world. The ending was a little drawn-out and obvious – not necessarily good or bad.

Overall: Good robot coming-of-age story.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars. 

Top Five (March 2015)

Official Australian release date: 12/3/15. Viewed: 13/3/15.

Director: Chris Rock

Actors: Chris Rock, Rosario Dawson, JB Smoove, Gabrielle Union

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Top Five’ is Chris Rock’s third directorial effort – and it is better than ‘Head of State’! I love Rock as a stand-up comedian, but I feel like he still hasn’t quite got it all together in terms of acting/directing. This is by no means a bad film – it’s just not his, or anyone involved, best work. It’s partially-autobiographical: comedian turns actor, cashes in on simple family-friendly films, gets pigeon-holed, tries to branch out into ‘serious’ films, flops. In reality, it’s almost an Eddie Murphy biopic – hugely successful comedian, drug/alcohol issues, simple family-friendly films (‘The Nutty Professor’, ‘Doctor Dolittle’, ‘Shrek’), then ‘serious’ films (‘Dreamgirls’, ‘A Thousand Words’).

Andre (Rock) starts off as an unlikeable, self-obsessed celebrity, engaged to an even more unlikable reality-TV “star” (Union), but is interviewed by Chelsea (Dawson) for an article and lets his guard down. The two of them conversing are some of the better scenes, as Dawson is such a great disarming actress – impossible to not love. You get some (hopefully not based too much on reality) anecdotes and a few funny moments. There’s room for plenty of good actors/friends-of-Rock’s – Smoove, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, Romany Malco, Kevin Hart, Adam Sandler & Jerry Seinfeld – but none of them get enough time to do anything too funny/great.

The eponymous “top five” is the question Rock asks others to see who their favourite rappers are – purportedly to ‘test’ their credibility. I wish Rock has focussed a little more on his top five attributes – being funny, multiplied by five! The film has a decent romantic angle and a good ending, but it not great, nor poor.

Overall: Adequate “com”, with some “rom”.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars. 

The Interview (February 2015)

Official Australian release date: 12/2/15. Viewed: 17/2/15.

Director: Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg

Actors: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Randall Park, Lizzy Caplan

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

Such as simple premise for a film – parody North Korea and their crazy dictator, as well as the ridiculous tabloid culture of some “news” shows. Dave (Franco) is the talk show host and his best friend/producer Aaron (Rogen) get the chance to interview Kim Jong-un (Park) – a journalistic goldmine. Agent Lacey (Caplan) from the CIA then enlists them to “take him out” – plenty of mishaps then ensue!

This is Rogen & Goldberg’s second co-directing effort (after ‘This Is The End’) and is much more assured – the jokes are freer, there’s more laughs throughout, and the pacing is much faster and doesn’t lull anywhere. Canada stands in for North Korea adequately enough and there’s some good support cast, as well as great cameos from Eminem, Rob Lowe & Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The ending has plenty of action/violence and gets a little ridiculous, but there’s some really funny moments throughout, with Rogen playing a perfect foil to Franco’s over-the-top-ness. Has the potential to be racist/offensive for no reason, but never is – just a film that enjoys itself pointing fun at humanity’s often stupid emotions and decisions.

Overall: Easy-going, well-made satire.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars. 

Kingsman: The Secret Service (February 2015)

Official Australian release date: 5/2/15. Viewed: 4/2/15.

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Actors: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine

Genre: Action / Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Kingsman’ is fun – it’s a modern take on action/adventure save-the-world films and while it pays homage to the Bond films, it isn’t a direct knock-off of them. The director Vaughn also “rebooted” superhero films recently (‘X-Men: First Class’ & ‘Kick Ass’) and is helped ably by this film being based on another Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick Ass, Secret Service) graphic novel, which means you’re guaranteed excessive violence and unexpected plot twists. I hope they keep turning his graphic novels into films!

Like any good spy movie, it starts with a ridiculous ‘evil genius’ – Valentine (Jackson, with a hilarious lisp & wardrobe) – plan: use a neurotransmitter to make people homicidally violent and wipe out the majority of the human race to save the planet from climate change. Then comes the secret spy agency that no government even knows about – the Kingsmen, led by Arthur (Caine). Their top agent Galahad/Harry (Firth, great to see him playing against type) who recruits Eggsy (newcomer Egerton) and we get to see him go through trials until he becomes a “gentleman Kingsman”. Some very nice suits, gadgetry and locations are used to impress that “manners maketh the man”.  

There are quite a few differences between the film and the graphic novel, but they don’t detract from what is a simple, well-made, fast-paced action film, with plenty of wit and comedy thrown in for good measure. All the actors are great and Jackson seems to relish being the crazy villain. I hope there’s sequels to follow! The ‘fireworks’ scene at the end is exceptional & hilarious. Also – only nine months until we get to see Mark Hamill again!

Overall: very fun action comedy.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.