BlackBerry

Official Australian release date: 17/8/23. Viewed: 26/8/23.
Director: Matt Johnson
Actors: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Matt Johnson, Cary Elwes
Genre: Drama / Biopic         
Rating: M

‘BlackBerry’ is another mostly-non-fiction cautionary business origin film, along the lines of ‘The Founder’ and ‘The Social Network’, as well as this year’s ‘Air’ and ‘Tetris’. We follow friends Mike (Baruchel), the tech whiz & Doug, the morale-booster (Johnson, also the director) who have formed start-up Research In Motion in Canada in the 90s, focusing on making modems and have a patent for a handheld email device. They come across ruthless businessman Jim (Howerton), who turns their idea into a reality.

The film probably sensationalises a lot of things, but does well to focus on some of the personal drama, especially the balancing act between Mike & Jim. But I would’ve liked to have seen more of the Mike/Doug dynamic and their early-RIM friends/employees doing the development. The acting is good all-round, with Baruchel playing someone different for him, Howerton is a great bastard and Johnson is fun, basically the TJ Miller character form ‘Silicon Valley’. There’s some laughs, but a lot more focus on the progress of the business.

BlackBerry had a good 6 years from 2002–2007, somewhat thanks to Mike becoming more like Jim, as well as hiring slave-driver Charles (Ironside) and the things that Jim has to do to fend off the takeover by Carl (Elwes) and Palm. BlackBerry was ultimately doomed to fail when Android OS became the standard for mobile phones, as well as the marketing behind the iPhone. Big shame for me, as I think I was one of the few in Australia who still owned a BlackBerry in 2010! Well-paced and under 2 hours, with an OK-digital-style score.

Overall: Somewhat bittersweet, but engaging story

Gav's Rating: 3 stars

Oppenheimer

Official Australian release date: 20/7/23. Viewed: 14/8/23.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Actors: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon
Genre: Drama / Biopic         
Rating: MA

‘Oppenheimer’ sounds like it could be boring – a film about a theoretical physicist in the early 20^th century. This could not be further from reality – I’d have to rate this up there with Nolan’s best work, almost better than ‘Inception’ and ‘The Prestige’. Time will tell. Cillian Murphy is excellent as Robert Oppenheimer, who leads America’s “Manhattan Project” during 1942–1945 in the race to develop the atomic bomb before the Nazis and end World War II.

While some creative licence may have been taken at times, the film does well to capture enough of the history, players and importance of the what, why and how. While no other actor outshines Murphy, there’s great support from wife Kitty (Blunt), his post-WWII boss Strauss (Downey Jr), first girlfriend Jean (Pugh), Einstein (Conti), Lawrence (Hartnett), Teller (Safdie), Rabi (Krumholz) and General Groves (Damon). There’s about 30 other familiar faces who pop up, either in Los Alamos or the hearings afterwards. While mostly linear, the time-swaps and black-and-white footage interspersed in the final act add an element of suspense to the post-WWII years.

Even though the run-time is 3 hours, the first hour flies by at breakneck speed, setting the scene, then the detail and problem-solving of the Manhattan Project almost make you forget what’s at stake – before the final act hammers home the moral and emotional toll the bomb had on Oppenheimer. The score is really great and adds plenty to the context – including the lack of score for the bomb test detonation, which has excellent practical special effects. There’s personal drama for Oppenheimer and his colleagues, and the film does well not to turn into a war (or anti-war) film, but stay focused on the scientific achievements. The court-room-type scenes are superbly done. You feel justified, fulfilled and sombre by the end.

Overall: An exceptional film in all respects

Gav's Rating: 4.5 stars

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I

Official Australian release date: 8/7/23. Viewed: 8/7/23.
Director: Chris McQuarrie
Actors: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg  
Genre: Action / Adventure         
Rating: M

‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I' (M:I7) is another strong entry in the action/spy series, with Ethan (Cruise) looking slightly older, but not less determined to save the world. I believe the sequel to this film will be his last outing – but we’ll see. This time, there’s some Skynet-like sentient-AI that’s manipulating nefarious types to take over the world, so the IMF team are out to get the two halves of key that can stop it.

Isla (Ferguson), Benji (Pegg) and Luther (Rhames) are back, as well as CIA boss Kittridge (Czerny), with Grace (Atwell), a thief, being the newcomer. The bad guys that keep thwarting them are Gabriel (Morales) from Ethan’s past, and Paris (Klementieff). The consistency of having McQuarrie as director of the two previous films helps, with everything feeling assured and this working as a really solid follow-up to ‘Fallout’.

There’s some funny moments, some sincere ones, and some of Ethan running, as contractually-obliged. The whole final scene on the train is excellent, with so many things happening, but there’s plenty of good set-pieces throughout, including a good car chase. However, the piece-de-resistance is the motorbike off the cliff into a BASE jump is something else. The fact Cruise did it for real, multiple times, is crazy and inspiring.

Overall: Can’t wait until the next (final?) one!

Gav's Rating: 4 stars

 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Official Australian release date: 29/6/23. Viewed: 2/7/23.
Director: James Mangold
Actors: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Ethan Isidore  
Genre: Action / Adventure         
Rating: M

‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ (or Indiana Jones 5) comes 42 years after the original, and while not in the same league as ‘Raiders’ or ‘Last Crusade’, it is up there with ‘Temple of Doom’. This film is directed by Mangold (‘Logan’ and ‘Ford v Ferrari’), who knows how to film a car/train chase. This time, it’s 1969 and we have an older Indy (Ford) trying to find the eponymous “dial” (more like an ancient ballerina box) with his goddaughter, Helena (Waller-Bridge).

She brings some good humour and a nice presence to balance Indy, as well as another pre-teen offsider, Teddy (Ididore), while Voller (Mikkelsen) and Klaber (Holbrook) are good as the modern-day Nazi bad guys. There’s a few slow moments early on (aside from the opening train scene), but the film really hits it’s stride in the 2^nd & 3^rd acts.

As with most Indiana Jones films, you have to suspend a bit of disbelief, but the plot-point for the final act is pretty dumb. There’s a few cameos, the iconic score from John Williams, some good wise-cracks and a mostly-satisfying ending. Mostly though, it feels comfortable and a mostly-exciting adventure film, as it should be.

Overall: Solid farewell to an icon

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Official Australian release date: 22/6/23. Viewed: 26/6/23.
Director: Steven Caple Jr
Actors: Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Peter Cullen, Pete Davidson
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
Rating: M

‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ is maybe the 7^th Transformers film and a reboot (also maybe) – I gave up watching them a while ago, but making this a film version of the great 1996-99 TV show ‘Beast Wars’ made it worth a watch. While we get Maximals, there’s no Predacons – I assume they’ll be the plot for the sequel. This is set in 1994 for some reason, so we get plenty of 90s hip-hop and two new human characters – Noah (Ramos) & Elena (Fishback). They find the power-stone-thing, which is a space/time portal, which brings the Autobots and the Terrorcons (not Decepticons).

The plot is then to either destroy the power-stone-thing, or the Autobots use it to get back to Cybertron. The Maximals got sent back in time to Earth 5,000 years ago, escaping Unicron (the Galactus of Transformers). They then go to Peru to try to stop Unicron coming to Earth. As with all alien films, too much time is spent on humans, as after the 5min prologue, there’s probably 40min with mostly just Noah and Elena and giving them backstory. I know they think we relatable characters, but we’re mostly here to see robots fight!

Which does pay-off solidly in the final act. It’s good to see Optimus still voiced by Peter Cullen and Bumblebee is still there, with Mirage (the Porche) voiced by Pete Davidson. There’s also Arcee, Wheeljack, Optimus Primal, Air-razor, Rhinox and Cheetor. The main bad-guy, Unicron’s right-hand-man, is a Ultron rip-off, Scourge (Dinklage). Ending is predictable, but obviously leaves open further films. Some solid jokes and action throughout. I think if you’re a 7-14 year old kid, you’ll love this.

Overall: Lacking in many ways, but fun enough

Gav's Rating: 3 stars

The Flash

Official Australian release date: 15/6/23. Viewed: 14/6/23.
Director: Andy Muschietti
Actors: Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
Rating: M

‘The Flash’ has been a long time coming, when you consider that Miller first played the character in ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ in 2016 and this version of the film starring Miller was announced in 2014! It’s interesting that they still try to make him the “funny one” of the Justice League team, when DC have kind of done that with the two ‘Shazam’ films already, and at it’s core, this film asks the serious question – if you could go back in time, would you save a loved one who died?

Due to the time-travel & parallel universe aspect of the film, we get to see many multiples – Barry/Flash (Miller), Batman (Keaton & Affleck) and Superman (no spoilers!). I’d say Keaton actually gets more screentime than Affleck and does really well, especially considering he’s 71 and hasn’t played Batman for over 30 years! The main plot is basically ‘Back to the Future’, which gets plenty of nods, with Batman and Kara (Calle) helping Barry to get back and overcome the changes of where he’s ended up.

Some of the “speed-force” CGI is pretty bad and the main problem the film has is trying to tie together a decade of DC films that haven’t had the same interconnectedness/planning as the Marvel films. This film uses Zod (Shannon) as the villain again, taking it back to 2013’s ‘Man of Steel’. While there’s not a crazy amount that’s new, there’s some funny/nice/good moments, but probably not enough to elevate this to something special, and it’s not quite as good as ‘Wonder Woman’ or ‘Man of Steel’.

Overall: Decent time-travel caper

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Official Australian release date: 1/6/23. Viewed: 2/6/23.
Directors: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin Thompson
Actors: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
Rating: PG

‘Across the Spider-Verse’ is the 4 and a half years later sequel to ‘Into the Spider-Verse’, with the third part of the trilogy – ‘Beyond the Spider-Verse’ – thankfully only a 9-month wait. It doesn’t pick up right where the first one finished, but starts with Gwen Stacy (Steinfeld) in her universe, before we get re-introduced to now-15-years-old Miles Morales (Moore). It’s probably not essential to have seen the first film, or any of the other ‘Spider-Man’ films, but it definitely helps – lots of little nods and references throughout.

This time the seemingly-innocuous villain is “The Spot” (Schwartzman), who has a cool power and makes some good jokes, but actually has a solid arc, which sets up the next film. Worth noting this is basically half a film (even though it goes for 2 hours 15min), intentionally split in two. When Miles and Gwen try to stop The Spot across the multiverse, they encounter a universe full of Spider-Men, including the familiar Peter Parker (Johnson), with the 2099 version Miguel (Isaac) trying to act as the safekeeper of the multiverse, which sets up a disagreement.

There’s a fair bit going on, obviously, and so many inside jokes and references when we meet some of the various Spider-Men (would reward repeat viewings), but at it’s heart it’s still a coming-of-age story with Miles and Gwen at it’s centre, trying to do what’s right and prove themselves in the world(s). Soundtrack will appeal to teens. I think the universe-hopping is handled well, but the standout, as with the original, is the various types of animation and how they change and fit each scene. The watercolours complement the CGI and classic cartoon styles superbly. Some great new sidekick characters and set-up superbly for the third (final?) film.

Overall: Still plenty of action & fun – bring on the finale!

Gav's Rating: 4 stars