Swiss Army Man (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 14/7/16. Viewed: 20/7/16.

Director: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

Actors: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Rating: M

An odd mix of ‘Cast Away’ and ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’, ‘Swiss Army Man’ is better than both those films, thanks to it’s unique look at life, friendship and loneliness – as well as the fact that it has two great actors fully committed to their characters. Hank (Dano) is stranded on an island when he finds Manny (Radcliffe), a corpse washed up on the beach. The excessively flatulent body helps him get back to the mainland (somewhere in Washington, Oregon, or northern California) – a great opening 10min. Still lost and starving in the wilderness, this is when Hank figures out that Manny can speak – and the whimsy begins! The next 20min are a little slow as Hank has to explain everything to Manny (including ‘Jurassic Park’!), but then the adventure begins.

Once they’re on the move, the editing is pacier, the scenery looks great, the things Hank makes are wonderful and there’s some true laugh out loud moments. The absurdity of it all is quickly forgotten, as Hank discovers Manny’s “superpowers” and there’s a great montage and some great stunts by Radcliffe. The dialogue between the two is fun, with Manny getting to almost learn like a child and ask inappropriate questions. You almost forget the character’s dead, until they do something, like flop his head, to remind you he’s a talking cadaver!

One thing that keeps the film light and fun is the score by Andy Hull and Robert McDowell, which uses no lyrics, just amazing harmonies (do’s, ah’s, ba’s, la’s) all layered on top of each other – usually starting from something Hank or Manny says. Quite inventive and it suits perfectly. The ending is done quite well, with their return from the bush, but you truly feel you’ve been on a journey with them and feel their friendship. For a directorial debut, the Daniels have done a great job – I look forward to what’s next!

Overall: Unique, mostly fun, look at friendship.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Ghostbusters (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 14/7/16. Viewed: 15/7/16.

Director: Paul Feig

Actors: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones

Genre: Comedy / Sci-Fi

Rating: PG

‘Ghostbusters’ is the reboot of a classic comedy everyone saw growing up, the 1984 original. This has a pretty similar plot – they’re a bunch of nerdy outcasts, with Erin (Wiig) and Abby (McCarthy) childhood-friends-turned-scientists, Holtzmann (McKinnon) as the odd engineer and Patty (Jones) as someone with a car. When the under-developed villain, Rowan (Casey), starts transporting ghosts ‘across the barrier’, with plans to unleash the “fourth cataclysm”, the Ghostbusters have to save the day against a giant ghost-thing destroying New York. Sound familiar?

Kevin (Hemsworth) is their dumb secretary and gets a few laughs, but like most of the side characters, he’s under-used and doesn’t add too much to the plot – there’s also Andy Garcia as the mayor, Charles Dance as a Professor, Matt Walsh as a Government agent, Zach Woods as a tour guide, Karan Soni as the delivery boy, and obviously Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson and Weaver appear in small cameos – almost pointlessly so. The CGI’s bright and colourful and the tone’s light throughout, even when all the ghosts are unleashed. It gets a little silly and over-the-top at the end, but wraps up neatly.

It’s not as good as Feig’s other recent films (‘Bridesmaids’, ‘The Heat’, ‘Spy’), but it does top ‘Ghostbusters II’. Plenty of jokes, with most working, except McKinnon really annoyed me as the weird one-note character. Definitely feel like Wiig could’ve had a few more jokes. The film certainly doesn’t tarnish the reputation or memory of the original – or match it for fun and adventure – but it doesn’t necessarily add a whole lot to the Ghostbusters world/franchise either.

Overall: Not as good as the original, but has its moments.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

Goldstone (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 7/7/16. Viewed: 5/7/16.

Director: Ivan Sen

Actors: Aaron Pedersen, Alex Russell, Jacki Weaver, David Gulpilil

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Rating: M

‘Goldstone’ is the sequel to ‘Mystery Road’, a decent Australian outback murder-mystery, but I actually liked ‘Goldstone’ better, as it has more unknowns and undercurrents than it’s predecessor. Pedersen is back as Detective Jay Swan, but he’s a bit more disheveled this time, having gone through some type of trauma in his life. He arrives in Goldstone, a tiny outback town, looking for a missing girl and isn’t really welcomed and has to try to find her with resistance from everyone.

The cast is great – Josh (Russell) is the only police officer for 100’s of kilometres and it’s great to see him wrestle with what’s right vs what he can and can’t turn a blind eye to; Maureen (Weaver) is the crazy-eyed, false-smile mayor; Jimmy (Gulpilil) & Tommy (Lewis) are local aboriginal elders, and while Gulpilil’s role is small, it’s significant; Johnny (Wenham) is the greedy mine manager, supplying jobs (and alcohol); and May (Davidson) is a woman trapped in a tough situation. Josh and Jay clash, as he doesn’t need outsiders interfering, and Maureen and Johnny certainly don’t want their racquet foiled.

Plenty happens, even though there’s lots of great scenery shots, as well as some from overhead (crane or helicopter), that look amazing. It’s filmed in western Queensland, but could be anywhere in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Western Australia or New South Wales – extremely desolate and at times, beautiful. It’s a slow burn, but everything comes together strongly for the final 20min, with a good ending. Plenty of social commentary – aboriginal interests vs mining interests; city vs country way-of-life; greed vs ethics; but in the end, it’s an above average cop thriller that works on a few levels.

Overall: Enjoyable piece of Australian cinema.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Everybody Wants Some!! (June 2016)

Official Australian release date: 23/6/16. Viewed: 28/6/16.

Director: Richard Linklater

Actors: Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, J. Quinton Johnson, Zoey Deutch

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

Another really enjoyable Linklater film – very different to ‘Boyhood’ and almost a sequel to the high school-set ‘Dazed and Confused’ – ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ is the story of college, as seen through the eyes of baseball pitcher Jake (Jenner). He has it pretty good – an off-campus dorm (not quite a fraternity) at an unnamed Texas university, where he and his teammates pretty much have free reign. The film’s set in 1980 and looks the piece – great cars, crap hair, dodgy fashion, mo’s everywhere. Plus, the music!

The soundtrack is exceptional, and I imagine if you were of the right age in 1980, it would take you straight back there – The Knack, Cheap Trick, ZZ Top, Parliament, Blondie, Queen, Pink Floyd, Devo and, of course, Van Halen, with the eponymous song. There’s plenty of fun and plenty of characters, with the teammates going to three different parties in three nights before classes commence – but the film’s not all about drugs, sex and alcohol – although they’re quite prevalent. It’s really about finding out who you are or want to be as a young adult and along with the quips, jokes and games, there’s a few nice philosophical moments thrown in – plenty courtesy of Finnegan (Powell) and Dale (Johnson).

Beverly (Deutch) is a nice love interest and it’s great to see most of the dozen characters get a decent airing. A few oddballs for the laughs, but plenty of realistic college-age pastimes too. There’s no real focus on baseball other than for about 15min, which is good. It’s a good cross between ‘Bad Neighbours’ and ‘Animal House’, with not as much outrageousness, but a fair bit of heart. The film’s probably 20min too long, but it’s still enjoyable with a good ending.

Overall: Fun trip down memory lane.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (May 2016)

Official Australian release date: 26/5/16. Viewed: 24/5/16.

Director: Taika Waititi

Actors: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rachel House, Rhys Darby  

Genre: Comedy / Adventure

Rating: PG

From New Zealand’s best director, Waititi (‘Eagle Vs Shark’, ‘Boy’, ‘What We Do in the Shadows’), comes ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’, which is a title that doesn’t  make much sense, but when explained with kid logic, it does – “Wildebeest walk thousands of miles. Feels like we’ve walked that may too. That must make us Wilderpeople!” Simple premise – Ricky (Dennison) is an orphan adopted by Bella (Te Wiata) and Hector (Neill), but when Bella dies unexpectedly, Child Services want to put Ricky back in ‘juvie’, so he runs away into the bush, where Hector has to protect him.

There’s so many things to like about this film – the score is great, the little chapter subtitles keep the pace moving, the visuals are stunning (or “majestical”), being filmed on New Zealand’s north island, there’s plenty of great jokes/quips and, most importantly, there’s lots of heart. There’s some nice sentimental moments and some sad ones, handled equally as well as the comedy. The bond formed by Hector and Ricky isn’t forced or fake – it happens naturally and you become really attached to the characters, since it’s mostly the two of them throughout.

But there’s still some time for some good support cast – Paula (House) as the ‘Terminator’-like Child Services Officer hunting them down, Waititi himself as the priest and “Psycho” Sam (Darby). Probably my only criticism is that the film needed more Rhys Darby! It’s great to see Neill understated and slowly shed his shell, but the film belongs to Dennison – chirpy, optimistic in spite of his ordeals and genuinely funny.

Overall: This director and his stars certainly have the “knack” for a great film.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

X-Men: Apocalypse (May 2016)

Official Australian release date: 19/5/16. Viewed: 21/5/16.

Director: Bryan Singer

Actors: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Lawrence

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: M

‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ is the sixth X-Men film and the final piece in the second trilogy (2011–2016), fitting in after ‘Days of Future Past’ and before ‘X-Men’ (2000). Although the time travel of the previous film does leave a somewhat altered “reality”, so it doesn’t necessarily all fit together nicely. Plot’s pretty simple – Apocalypse/En Sabah Nur (Isaac) is the first mutant, with the ability to collect other mutants’ powers, and he’s now been resurrected and wants to destroy the world so only the strong survive. Plenty of Nazi parallels, and they use Magneto (Fassbender) and his Jewish past to emphasize this.

Some of the films like repeating the same territory, as they have to re-establish the “new” characters: Jean (Turner), Cyclops (Sheridan), Havoc (Till), Nightcrawler (Smit-McPhee) and how they fit in with Xavier (McAvoy) and his school. I guess after the other two films, they needed Mystique (Lawrence), but I’m not sure why she needs to play such a big part. And Beast (Hoult) is mostly wasted, along with Apocalypse’s Horsemen – Storm (Shipp), Psylocke (Munn) & Angel (Hardy). Some great CGI and large-scale chaos shown, but also some nice soft-touch moments, particularly between Charles & Erik – something Singer did well in the original film. One of the best bits is near the end when they almost verbatim repeat something from the 2000 film – and there’s another nice tongue-in-cheek moment when they come out of seeing ‘Return of the Jedi’ (forgot to mention the film’s set in 1983!)

I loved Metallica’s ‘The Four Horsemen’ playing when Apocalypse turns Angel into the metal-winged Archangel, worked great for the scene. Quicksilver (Peters) – despite being dead in the ‘Avengers’ films and only 10 years younger than Fassbender – is a very welcome addition here and has some great moments, particularly the Eurythmics bit. It doesn’t follow any particular comic storyline completely, but borrows from a few, with only a few nods to the 1990s ‘Age of Apocalypse’. Magneto’s motivation could’ve been better, for me, but the scenes he and Xavier are in are always good. Issac is menacing but not too over-the-top as Apocalypse, but somehow, even with the world (slowly!) crumbling, it doesn’t all click quite as well as you feel it could. Definitely a worthy addition to the franchise, but still a shame they never reached the pinnacle set by the original X-Men film.  

Overall: Fitting finale.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Bad Neighbours 2 (May 2016)

Official Australian release date: 5/5/16. Viewed: 5/5/16.

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Actors: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Chloe Grace Moretz

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Bad Neighbours 2’ (or ‘Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising’ in America) is a straightforward comedy sequel – all that’s changed is the frat next door is replaced with a sorority (one of the funnier scenes involves how to spell “sorority”!). Mac (Rogen) & Kelly (Byrne) are back – as are the cute twins who play their daughter, now two years older – and still at it (literally in the opening scene). Shelby (Moretz) plays the leader of the new sorority moving in next door, but they do take some time to build her character, along with Beth (Clemons) and Nora (Feldstein) and make them non-stereotypical teenage girls – for the most part.

There’s a fair bit that doesn’t work: still heaps of pot, most of it unnecessary, with Rogen must have written into his contracts or he won’t appear, the predictable ending, annoying party/crap music scene(s) and some swearing/jokes that don’t hit the mark. However, the majority of jokes – and pranks – are funny and do work.

There’s some feminism and pro-gay sentiment in there – and one great/terrible Jewish joke – but it’s not sentimental or anything. Never going to blow minds or be a game-changer, but a decent way to spend 90min. And plenty of shirtless Efron or the ladies!

Overall: Still a simple, fun comedy.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.