Lion (January 2017)

Official Australian release date: 19/1/17. Viewed: 24/1/17.

Director: Garth Davis

Actors: Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG

‘Lion’ (the reason behind the title is revealed at the end) is an amazing journey – and a true story too! Simple premise – Saroo (Pawar – one cute kid!) helps his brother, Guddu (Bharate), little sister Shekila (Solanki) and mother (Bose) to survive in the Indian poverty, when one day his brother accidentally loses him on a train station. Being only five, after travelling for two days, Saroo can’t pronounce his home town correctly, so he ends up in a juvenile prison, along with thousands of other lost kids. The time spent (45min) with young Saroo builds his character and back story nicely, and displays the vibrant and bustling India.

Saroo is adopted by Sue (Kidman) & John (Wenham – needed a bit more to do) and given a great life in Hobart. They also adopt Mantosh (Ladwa) – Saroo (now Patel) grows up well-adjusted, Mantosh not so much. Saroo meets Lucy (Mara) at university in Melbourne and they fall in love. He then finally decides to search for his mother, brother and sister, which is a tough ask across the billion-plus people in India and the fact he doesn’t know what region he’s from.

The pacing is good – doesn’t feel like a two-hour film – and I would rate this on the same level as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’: they both have some similarities, but quite a few differences, with Patel’s charisma shining through and helping him to carry the film. The support cast is good, but he has to display the most emotion and the ending in India is beautiful. Decent score, great Indian and Tasmanian settings and a great story.

Overall: Excellent tale of hope and determination.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars. 

Moonlight (January 2017)

Official Australian release date: 26/1/17. Viewed: 21/1/17.

Director: Barry Jenkins

Actors: Trevante Rhodes, Andrew Holland, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris

Genre: Drama

Rating: M

‘Moonlight’ is the story of Chiron, a small African-American child growing up in the poorer neighbourhoods of Miami. It’s told in three 35min blocks – Chiron at ~7 is called ‘Little’ and played by Hibbert, where he escapes bullying and his mother’s drug habit by finding a role model in Juan (Ali). Chiron at ~17 is played by Sanders as he struggles through high school. Chiron at ~27 is called ‘Black’ and is played by Rhodes after he has moved to Atlanta.  

The film’s a little too arty in parts, putting in sweeping/annoying camera angles and movement when not needed, and a bit too much of the over-dramatic score when one of the actors is just starting at the camera. It does seem to take a while for anything to happen, and – even though you feel sorry for him – I never grew to care too much for Chiron, as you never get to really know him.

The character of Kevin (Piner/Jerome/Holland) becomes more interesting each phase, but also seems a bit underdeveloped. There’s some nice moments, particularly with Juan and Teresa (Monae) – both underutilized – but it all ends abruptly and you feel like you witnessed Chiron grow up, but not really do anything…

Overall: Average coming-of-age film.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars. 

Passengers (January 2017)

Official Australian release date: 1/1/17. Viewed: 3/1/17.

Director: Morten Tyldum

Actors: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne

Genre: Sci-Fi / Adventure

Rating: M

‘Passengers’ is an interesting sci-fi film, in that it doesn’t involve aliens in any way! It has more in common with ‘WALL-E’, than it does with ‘Alien’ or ‘Event Horizon’, as it follows the spaceship Avalon (cool helix design, basically a giant cruise ship) on its way to Homestead II, starting a new colony 120 years from Earth. It’s approximately 30min of ‘Cast Away’ (man trapped alone), 45min of love story and then 40min of ‘Deepwater Horizon’ (survival film)! No time period is given, but I assume it’s ~100 years in the future.

What works well is the casting – two boring people could not sustain this film, but by casting Hollywood’s two best & brightest, it works wonders. Jim (Pratt) is accidentally awoken from his hibernation 90 years early and tries everything to get back to sleep and/or find a solution. Because he’s a passenger and not crew, his options are limited. Eventually, Jim wakes up Aurora (Lawrence), which is handled well, and the two of them falling in love is as interesting as the shots of the galaxy outside the windows. Arthur (Sheen) as the android bartender is also a nice touch. The only other person to get some screen time near the end is Gus (Fishburne), who finally figures out what’s wrong and kick-starts the final stanza.

It’s not hard to watch when you have Jennifer Lawrence is a pool – but as well as being extremely attractive, it helps that both her and Pratt are very charismatic and able to carry out the tender moments and the exciting ones. The shots of the ship in motion and the galaxy in the background are fantastic, and while a bit of it is predictable, it’s a decent ride. Solid ending too.

Overall: Not quite a sci-fi classic, but good fun.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars. 

Why Him? (January 2017)

Official Australian release date: 26/12/16. Viewed: 2/1/17.

Director: John Hamburg

Actors: James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoe Deutch, Megan Mullally

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Why Him?’ is a Christmas-set ‘Meet The Parents’ (and is produced by Ben Stiller), from the director of ‘Along Came Polly’ and ‘I Love You, Man’, so you know what kind of humour to expect. The plot is just Stephanie (Deutch) trying to convince her parents, Ned (Cranston) & Barb (Mullally) to like her new boyfriend, Laird (Franco). It doesn’t help that he’s 10 years older (16 years older in real life!), a billionaire and has no filter!

Franco plays his usual loveable doofus, Cranston is great as the straight-man with some moments of madness, but Deutch, Mullally, Cedric The Entertainer and Gluck are underutilised. Keegan-Michael Key does get plenty of chances to shine as Gustav, a German(?) “butler” who is also Laird’s martial arts trainer/best friend. Kaley Cuoco also has a pretty funny cameo-type role. There’s plenty of sight gags and prat-falls, and an amusing bit with a digital toilet that solves the plot at the end.

There’s good use of KISS – both “Rock & Roll All Nite” and the 2-3min cameo from Paul & Gene at the end! Franco pretty much steals every scene he’s in, with his loveable charm and smile and goofy remarks. It’s a fun film, but could be a little quicker and doesn’t quite achieve greatness.

Overall: Good for a few laughs.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars. 

Moana (December 2016)

Official Australian release date: 26/12/16. Viewed: 30/12/16.

Director: Ron Clements

Actors: Auli’I Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison

Genre: Adventure/Comedy

Rating: PG

‘Moana’ is a near-flawless family film from Disney. It’s got pretty much everything: comedy (mostly from a chicken!), pathos, a good journey with some adversity to overcome, some self-discovery, a great sidekick, some songs, the death of a loved one (the Grandma [House]) and heaps of great animation/scenery.

The Chief (Morrison/Jango Fett), doesn’t want Moana (Cravalho) to leave their Pacific island, for fear of the big ocean, but she has to follow her destiny and find Maui (Johnson) to restore the heart of Te Fiti and restore balance to the islands. Maui obviously starts out as a bit of a jerk, but he endears himself to us with his well-meaning ways and hilarious moving-tattoos. The lava monster’s cool, but not too scary – definitely OK for kids over 3.

It’s great to see/hear Polynesian actors, songs (particularly the tribal drums) and ancestral art/tattoos. There’s a great voice cast – the Grandma is touching – and Clement (Flight of the Conchords) is hilarious as the giant/evil crab. However, it’s Moana’s film and she’s charismatic, feisty and respectful, depending on the situation (helps that they chose a 14-year-old Hawaiian to play her!). She probably sings a few too many songs for me (think there’s about seven in the film), and they definitely could’ve done without The Rock’s song! It all ends happily, with her people voyaging again.

Overall: Great looking and sounding ocean adventure.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars. 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (December 2016)

Official Australian release date: 15/12/16. Viewed: 15/12/16.

Director: Gareth Edwards

Actors: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Riz Ahmed

Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Adventure

Rating: M

‘Rogue One’ (or “Star Wars Episode 3.5”) is the first standalone Star Wars film (excluding 2008’s CGI ‘The Clone Wars’ film), which is both its strong point and part of it’s burden. It’s hard to write a review objectively, since Star Wars is one of my favourite things ever, and almost every second scene is a reference to something from the Star Wars universe, so it’s hard to imagine it from a context of someone coming in not having seen anything else Star Wars. And frankly, if you haven’t seen the original trilogy, you need a good hard look at your priorities in life!

I say this is like episode 3.5, but it’s actually more like episode 3.9, with the ending leading directly into ‘A New Hope’. The film centres on how the Rebel Alliance obtained the Death Star plans, that allows Luke Skywalker to blow it up. The introduction of Krennic (Mendelsohn), Galen Erso (Mikkelsen) and his daughter, Jyn (Jones) is done well, but there’s not that much backstory. Basically, Galen’s forced to build the Death Star, explain why there’s a clear design flaw, and the rebels are sent on a frantic chase to steal the plans and get them to Princess Leia in time.

There’s a decent cast, with Yen & Jiang probably the best (even though I’m not sure you learn their names?), Rook (Ahmed) as the Imperial defector who grows in importance, Cassian (Luna) the rebel pilot who’s had to do plenty of unpleasant deeds, and the droid K-2SO (Tudyk), who steals almost every scene he’s in. Saw (Whitaker), Mon Mothma (O’Reilly), Bail Organa (Smits) and the CGI Tarkin don’t have that much to do. There’s obviously a few cameos, with Darth Vader getting two scenes. I did like the film, but I probably wanted to like it more than I did. It tries hard, but it’s hard to connect with the characters, especially as we know how it’s going to end. The best bits by far are seeing the new planets, the Death Star in action, the set-design/feel of Yavin 4 and the rebel fleet, and the space battle at the end.

Overall: Solid Star Wars film – not mind-blowing, but doesn’t detract from the originals.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars. 

Office Christmas Party (December 2016)

Official Australian release date: 08/12/16. Viewed: 07/12/16.

Director: Josh Gordon & Will Speck

Actors: Jason Bateman, T.J. Miller, Olivia Munn, Jennifer Aniston

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

‘Office Christmas Party’ does what it says on the box – it’s a comedy revolving around a workplace Christmas Party in Chicago. It used to be a family business, but now Clay (Miller) runs the office and his sister Carol (Aniston) is trying to shut him down. Josh (Bateman) is the CTO and Tracey (Munn) his IT head/love interest. To boost morale, Clay, Josh & Tracey decide to have a huge Christmas Party – and the debauchery ensues.

The support cast is pretty great – Mary from HR (McKinnon, in a terrible Xmas jumper), Jeremy from Customer Relations (Corddry, always funny), Fred from Accounts (Park, with his weird fetish) and Nate from IT (Soni, almost his same cab-driver character from ‘Deadpool’, great to watch), plus a crazy pimp (Bell). The plot is pretty thin and padded with a car chase and the typical “rave to some techno” scenes. The “love story” between Josh & Tracey is almost non-existent.

It’s the same directors that bought us ‘The Switch’ with Bateman and Aniston, but it’s nowhere near as fun or inventive as ‘Horrible Bosses’, or last year’s ‘The Night Before’ – and as far as “adult” Christmas films go, not even close to ‘Bad Santa’. There are plenty of laugh out loud moments, and a few good jokes thrown in, but often it seems like it’s being crude or stupid for no reason.

Overall: Decent throw-away Christmas comedy.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.