The Magnificent Seven (October 2016)

Official Australian release date: 29/9/16. Viewed: 1/10/16.

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Actors: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard

Genre: Action / Western

Rating: M

‘The Magnificent Seven’ is perhaps an unnecessary remake – almost 56 years, to the day – but it’s just as good as the original. Still the same simple premise – a Western, where a small town is being overthrown by a villain, so they hire a bunch (well, seven, to be precise!) of drifters to help them fight to save the town. It’s still set in the 19^th century, but the main differences are that the town’s not in Mexico this time, and there’s much more focus on the church (not necessarily religion).

The leader this time is Chisolm (Washington), a bounty hunter (Yul Brenner’s character), with Faraday (Pratt) a wise-cracking gunslinger (Steve McQueen’s character), Goodnight (Hawke) a former sharpshooter, Billy (Lee) a knife-master, Vasquez (Garcia-Rulfo) the Mexican, Red Harvest (Sensmeier) the Comanche and Horne (D’Onofrio) – the best character – as the mountain man. Still no real motivation for them to help the town is given, but let’s go with it anyway. Sarsgaard is good as Bogue, infusing him with plenty of contempt and no empathy. Bennett is OK, but mostly a token female character.

Does what a good Western should – plenty of shoot-outs, sweeping vistas, explosions, horses riding and jumping, staring from under hat brims, and a healthy death toll! Has a few slow points in the first half, but the battle for the final 30min or so is done very well. Doesn’t necessarily add to the original, but nor does it do it a disservice. A straight-down-the-line 3.5.

Overall: Good cast deliver a solid Western.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Sausage Party (August 2016)

Official Australian release date: 11/8/16. Viewed: 16/8/16.

Director: Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon

Actors: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Edward Norton

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Sausage Party’ is… well, just plain nuts! Probably the best description is “absurd”. It’s certainly unique, being the first ‘adult’ GCI film (not just a cartoon like the ‘South Park’ movie) and it does all it can to push the boundaries of making sure you remember it’s not a kids film (even though it starts with a song), with so many swear words, racial stereotypes, sexual innuendo and drugs in the first 30min that you can’t forget it’s a Seth Rogen film. Frank (the sausage, Rogen) and his girlfriend Brenda (the bun, Wiig) can’t wait to get out of their packages and be united in the “Great Beyond” outside the supermarket.

When Barry (Cera) and Carl (Hill), Frank’s sausage buddies, are bought and find out the truth of what happens to food, they try to return to warn the others. The voice actors are great – Sammy (bagel, Norton), Lavash (Krumholtz), Teresa (taco, Hayek), Douche (Kroll), Firewater (Hader), Grits (Robinson), Honey mustard (McBride). It’s part road trip, part action/‘Die Hard’ and part stoner rom-com. The “human world” vs “food world” distinction is done well, with faded colour vs vibrancy. Some of Rogen’s almost-sermons on not following the religious crap you’re fed without proof is good, but the anti-religion message is lost in the chaos.

It’s not as uproarious as I was hoping – it’s certainly funny and has a lot of chuckles, but there wasn’t many truly hilarious moments for me. Part of that is my expectations being too high – I’ve been waiting for this film for three years and it’s nowhere near as good as ‘Knocked Up’, ‘Superbad’ or ‘Pineapple Express’. Some of the best bits are the morbid/violent bits, not necessarily the dialogue. The last 20min or so didn't really work for me - a bit too much. There’s so much going on and so many things to look at and listen to that some jokes are lost or skipped over.

Overall: Crazy – in a mostly good way.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

Bad Moms (August 2016)

Official Australian release date: 11/8/16. Viewed: 14/8/16.

Director: Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

Actors: Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell, Christina Applegate

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Bad Moms’ (not sure why the spelling wasn’t changed in Australia, like ‘Bad Neighbours’ was – lazy work, distributors) is a straightforward comedy, delivering what it should – easy laughs with not much seriousness. The irony is that the film was written and directed by two men… Amy (Kunis – the standout star here) is a mother of two, juggling all the chores and school drop-offs with a job and a disintegrating marriage. She semi-loses it when Gwendolyn (Applegate), the uptight PTA president, pushes her too far and challenges for the PTA leadership so all the mums have less stress and things to worry about in their lives.

Kiki (Bell) is good as the repressed mother of four, but single mum Carla (Hahn) really steals the show, with her attitude and wisecracks. The montage when they go to the shops on their first night out together is gold. The other cast get some time, but not much, so it’s really these three vs Applegate. The kids are good, but don’t have much impact either.

The soundtrack’s crap, but there’s a message in here somewhere. It’s not that raunchy or dirty – except for a few moments – but does have way more laughs than I was expecting. Kunis is funny, sensitive, looks exceptional and carries the film. The end credits have the stars and their real-life mums reminiscing on couches – surprisingly touching.

Overall: Light and breezy fun.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Suicide Squad (August 2016)

Official Australian release date: 4/8/16. Viewed: 4/8/16.

Director: David Ayer

Actors: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis

Genre: Action / Comedy

Rating: M

‘Suicide Squad’ is on par with ‘Batman v Superman’ (if you didn’t mind that, you won’t mind this and if you hated that, you probably won’t like this either) and the film acts as its sequel and a stop-gap until ‘Justice League’ comes out next year. It’s also DC trying to compete with Marvel’s ‘Deadpool’ which was MA and about an antihero who kills people – although this is only rated M. Still, a few people are killed and there’s plenty of violence, but it probably has more in common with ‘Ghostbusters’ than ‘Deadpool’.

The film does a great job of introducing the characters in the first 20min, with everyone getting their own song and “profile”, and each of them gets a bit of backstory as the film progresses – Deadshot (Smith, an assassin), Harley Quinn (Robbie, Joker’s girlfriend, in those amazing “pants”), Joker (Leto, with his metal teeth making him sound a little like Ledger), Boomerang (Courtney, doing his best Tom Hardy in ‘The Revenant’ impression), Diablo (Hernandez, pretty much Human Torch), Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Enchantress (Delevingene, a witch). There should’ve been more of how Batman (Affleck) put them all in prison, but he only gets 2min screentime, and the Joker not much more – obviously setting up a Joker v Batman film somewhere down the line. Waller (Davis) is the true villain and she manipulates well to get this “team” together and “controlled” by Flag (Kinnaman) to go on a rescue mission, that soon turns into a suicide mission.

The main issue is the “ultimate” bad guy is one of them – Enchantress. She creates a swirling vortex-thing that we’ve seen a million times and they have to stop her. The problem is the same for all superhero films – why not call in the rest of the heroes? In this case, where are Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash? The tone is sometimes light and funny, but then gloomy and “we’re still the bad guys and are still probably going to die” the next. It doesn’t ruin the film, but sometimes makes it hard to read. The soundtrack is great throughout and often keeps the tone fun. The action and fight scenes are done well, but the film probably outstays it’s welcome by 10min. No one, even Smith, hogs too much screentime and it definitely doesn’t always work, but is a mostly fun ride.

Overall: Not a bad comic book movie.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Maggie’s Plan (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 7/7/16. Viewed: 31/7/16.

Director: Rebecca Miller

Actors: Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader

Genre: Comedy / Romance

Rating: M

‘Maggie’s Plan’ is a fairly simple romantic-comedy – quite light and breezy, with a few laughs and nothing too dramatic to bog it down. Maggie (Gerwig) works at a New York university and her “plan” is to have a child by herself, since she’s ready to be a mother (she’s only meant to be 29, mind) and “borrows” some sperm off an old friend. The “plan” goes astray when she meets John (Hawke), a professor/anthropologist who’s trying to write a novel, and falls in love with him.

This is obviously further complicated by the fact John’s married to Georgette (Moore), another professor – but she’s Danish – and Maggie unwittingly becomes a homewrecker. She technically ends up with three kids – hers and John’s, plus her two step-kids John & Georgette already had. Tony (Hader) and Felicia (Rudolph) play her long-married friends and have most of the laugh-out-loud moments. After a few years, Maggie’s sick of John and her new “plan” is to get him back together with Georgette, which Tony accidentally gives away.

The film’s not as madcap as it may sound, and Gerwig plays Maggie as innocent and charming. It’s real fun watching Hawke & Moore out of their comfort zone – Hawke as the bumbling/ignorant guy who has no idea what’s going on in his life and Moore as a straight-and-narrow foreigner, but her accent is hilarious and her character a little deeper than it first appears. The film probably needed a bit more of Hader & Rudolph, but it’s all quite sweet and nice, including the ending.

Overall: Easy-going rom-com.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

Jason Bourne (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 28/7/16. Viewed: 29/7/16.

Director: Paul Greengrass

Actors: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel

Genre: Action

Rating: M

‘Jason Bourne’ (or Bourne 5) is kind of unnecessary after the superior ‘Bourne Ultimatum’, but Bourne/Webb (Damon) does find out a little more about his past and why he became a super-spy. Thankfully, the film holds up well as an action film in its own right, if you’re not comparing it to the other films in the franchise. It starts Bourne, now in his mid-40s, living off the grid in Greece and bare-knuckle boxing for fun/penance. Unbeknownst to him, Nicky (Stiles) has hacked the CIA and copied all their black-ops files, including “Treadstone”, and finds Bourne to tell him what she’s found. From there, the hunt begins!

It’s kind of like the ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘Bond’ films now, in that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it – it’s comfortable getting back in touch with the characters and hand-held camerawork that Greengrass uses as Bourne goes around efficiently dismantling the “bad guys” – which usually turn out to be rouge CIA operatives. The Asset (Cassel) is sent to “take care” of Bourne by Dewey (Jones), the craggy old CIA Director. Heather (Vikander) is the up-and-coming CIA cyber-expert and does well to keep you guessing who’s side she’s actually on.

The fight scenes are fast and furious, the score is great – always pounding away in the background, so you feel like there’s never any respite, which there isn’t for Bourne – they tick off about six countries, there’s an interesting debate on security vs privacy in the digital age, and best of all, the cars chases are exceptional – shot from all different angles, plenty of destruction everywhere and no CGI to be seen! Solid ending too.

Overall: Frenetic spy/action thriller.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

Lights Out (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 21/7/16. Viewed: 23/7/16.

Director: David F. Sandberg

Actors: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello, Alexander DiPersia

Genre: Horror

Rating: M

‘Lights Out’ is a semi-conventional haunted house film, with one person being haunted, but the rest of the family able to see the spirit/demon/ghost/whatever, rather than one of those movies where it’s only visible to the kid. Good start, with the shadowy apparition offing Paul (Burke), who is Rebecca (Palmer)’s step-dad, Martin (Bateman)’s dad, and Sophie (Bello)’s husband. Turns out the thing can’t appear or been seen in the light and lurks in the shadows…

The film does a good job of introducing the characters, including Rebecca’s boyfriend Brett (DiPersia), but also doesn’t let too long go without any scares or tension. The beauty of the evil being in the shadows means that you’re always looking behind characters or in the corners of every shot! The backstory of how Diana was Sophie’s childhood friend emerges and goes some (but certainly not all) of the way to explaining the haunting.

There’s a decent body count, scares, tension and shocks throughout, a good score, and it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. The ending is good and logical. All the actors, including the kid, are above average. One of the better horror films I’ve seen in a while – scary, without being too stupid or gory.

Overall: Well-made horror fun.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.