I never read the blurb before going to see this because I wanted to be surprised and this film did not disappoint.
Take what you know about Spider-Man and put it to one side because this comes at it in a totally original way.
From the very outset this is one trippy, fast paced well thought up movie, it came from the minds who brought you the brilliant 21 jump street and the excellent Lego movie I speak of Phil Lord and Chris Miller.
I loved everything about this movie from the animation, which was part movie , part graphic novel, good balance of action and story
the soundtrack fits it with the bouncy non stop visuals. I have had the soundtrack playing non stop ever since there is just something so catchy about it, I know some only work in the context of the film but this works outside it which is great. Some familiar names you may know are Nicki Minaj, Jayden Smith and Post Malone.
The voice acting is brilliant as something birthed by Marvel I wouldn’t expect anything less, see below for the link to actors featured, the directors were Rodney Rothman, Peter Ramsey and Bob Persichetti , they took the vision Phil and Chris had and brought it to life in a new and refreshing way.
I would definitely recommend this if you are a Spider-Man fan or even if your new to him, with laugh out loud moments and genuinely touching times this is a brilliant twist on what I know as Spider-Man.
Historical story (Potential for a great film) (1 more)
Judi Dench
B-grade spy caper antics (1 more)
Some ridiculous plot-points
A "39 Steps-esque" thriller that doesn't match its potential
In "Six Minutes to Midnight", it's the summer of 1939 (so we are in a parallel time-flow here with the events of "The Dig"). A private girl's school - the Augusta Victoria College in Bexhill-on-Sea - is run with loving care by the spinster Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench). But the 'finishing school' is unusual, in that all its teenage students are German. Indeed, they are the offspring of prominent Nazis.
When half-German English teacher Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) applies for a suddenly vacant position, he is taken on to share the teaching duties with Rocholl and Ilse (Carla Juri). But in snooping into the activities going on there, he finds mystery and danger.
Positives:
This is a fascinating premise for a movie that will appeal to an older generation, along the lines of "They don't make them like this anymore". It has elements of the 'good guy on the run' that struck parallels with "The 39 Steps" for me.
It's great that the school is all based on historical fact. Miss Rochol did indeed run the school, as a part of a plan to infiltrate British high-society with pro-Nazi sympathies ahead of an invasion. In real-life, one of the pupils was the god-daughter of Heinrich Himmler and one - Bettina von Ribbentrop - was the daughter of the German foreign minister.
After a comic "Family Guy"-style set of production logos to kick off with (for a full one and a half minutes!!), the pre-title sequence is a superb scene-setter. What exactly is going on here? A frantic scrabbling in a bookcase. A pier-end disappearance. The school badge (a genuine reproduction!) with its Union flag and Nazi Swastika insignia. The girls performing a ballet-like ritual on the beach with batons. (This looks to be a cracker, I thought).
Judi Dench. Superb as always.
Chris Seager does the cinematography, and impressively so. Most of Seager's CV has been TV work, so it must be delightful to be given the breadth of a cinema screen to capture landscapes like this.
I like the clever title: "Six Minutes to Midnight". I assumed it was intended solely to reflect the imminence of war. But it actually has another meaning entirely.
Negatives:
For me, was a highly frustrating film. All of the great credibility and atmosphere it builds up in the first 30 minutes, it then squanders by diving off into sub-Hitchcock spy capers.
Izzard becomes a 'man on the run', and doesn't seem credible at that. (I appreciate the irony of this statement given that this is the man who ran 32 marathons in 31 days for charity!) But Izzard is built for distance and not for speed, and some of the police chase scenes in the movie strain credibility to breaking point. Another actor might have been able to pull this off better.
There's a lack of continuity in the film: was it perhaps cut down from a much longer running time? At one point, Miller is a wanted murderer with his face plastered on the front pages. The next, kindly bus driver Charlie (Jim Broadbent) is unaccountably aiding him and Rochol seems to have assumed his innocence in later scenes.
Various spy caper clichés are mined to extreme - including those old classics 'swerve to avoid bullets'; 'gun shot but different gun'; and 'shot guy seems to live forever'. And there are double-agent 'twists' occurring that are utterly predictable.
A very specific continuity irritation for me was in an 'aircraft landing' scene. Markers are separated by nine paces (I went back and counted them!) yet a view from a plane shows them a 'runway-width' apart. This might have escaped scrutiny were it shown just once. But no... we have ground shot; air shot; ground shot; air shot..... repeatedly!
Summary thoughts: This was one of the cinema trailers that most appealed to me over a year ago, in those heady days in the sunlit-uplands of life before Covid-19. It's a movie that showed a great deal of promise, since the history is fascinating. And there is probably a really great TV serial in here: showing the 'alternate history' consequences of these high-society German girls penetrating British society and steering the war in a different direction (screenplay idea (C) RJ Mann!) But the potential is squandered with a non-credible spy caper bolted onto the side.
So with "Six Minutes to Midnight", Downton-director Andy Goddard has made a perfectly watchable 'rainy Sunday afternoon' film, that I enjoyed in part for its 'old-school' quirkiness. But it's frustrating that all the promise couldn't be transitioned into a more satisfying movie.
Story: 8 Mile starts as we head to Detroit to follow Jimmy B-Rabbit Smith (Eminem) as along with his friends David ‘Future’ Porter (Phifer) Cheddar Bob (Jones), Sol George (Miller) are trying to make an impact in the raping world, this world is dominated by the black community though he does have the skills.
The world is filled with gangs that are out for control, Jimmy must deal with his mother Stephanie (Basinger) and her problems as well as meeting a new love in Alex (Murphy), we follow as he is desperate to get out of the town which has held back man before.
Thoughts on 8 Mile
Characters – Jimmy B-Rabbit Smith is a young man who aspires to be a rapper, he is from the wrong side of town in Detroit, where he is given a chance to prove himself in the underground rap battle world, where any wrong move could be his last move with the gangs around him. He has the close friends that will watch his back, while working a dead-end job for any money he can get. Stephanie Smith is the mother of Rabbit, she is dating an aggressive man around he sons age and struggling to pay the rent to keep the roof over her daughter’s head. She does try to do the best things but has her own personal demons holding her back. David is the closest friend to Jimmy, he offers him the chance he wants to reach the next level but also needs to be the one to stop him making the mistakes in his life. Alex is the new romance in Jimmy’s life, she dreams of leaving too, to become a model which helps the to connect on a level unlike what Jimmy is used to.
Performances – Eminem is strong in this leading role, there are a few moments where he does look lost, one second too long for fight sequences, but the emotional levels he shows good. Kim Basinger is good in her role which shows that we have the most experience from her. Mekhi Phifer continued his rise in the early 2000s with this performance where he shows his ability to blend into any film. the whole cast performers well through the film with talent that went onto bigger things.
Story – The story shows the struggles of a young man trying to break into the world of rapping in the mean streets of Detroit, he is from the wrong side of the town and the gangs are always dangerous. Seeing the struggles for everyday life is very interesting to see unfold, however I was expecting something different with more rap battles. If you are a fan of the underground rap scene this will be a story that you want to watch.
Music – The music in the film starts with a battle rap and I was expecting more as the song Lose yourself did win Best Oscar Song.
Settings – The film shows us just how difficult growing up in Detroit can be, we feel the tension and feeling of abandonment the city is feeling.
Scene of the Movie – Battle rap.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Not enough rapping.
Final Thoughts – This is a look at the mean streets of Detroit in the battle rap world where every corner could be dangerous.
At over 4 hours it's still bloated and sprawling (1 more)
4:3 ratio is a needless gimmick
Does Lipstick on the Pig work?
In Zack Snyder’s much-discussed director’s cut of “Justice League”, Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead (post the events of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice“) and a grieving Lois Lane (Amy Adams) can’t move on. Even Martha Kent (Diane Lane) has had the family farm repossessed. But the world is in deadly danger due to the work of Steppenwolf and his army of parademons. They are trying to reunite three ‘Mother Boxes’, previously hidden on earth. If joined and synchronized they will form ‘The Unity’, creating a gateway for Steppenwolf’s boss – Darkseid – to arrive and control the universe by invoking the “anti-life equation” (basically lockdown 3!).
Only the Justice League’s combined talents might be enough to stop them – but Batman (Ben Affleck) is having trouble in getting Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) to work together. And even then, they reckon they might be a man short!
Positives:
- Well - it's so much better than the original 2017 version of "Justice League", but then that's not saying much! (I realise that I never did a review for that movie, which I saw on a transatlantic flight - - I put the whole incoherent mess down to my jetlag. But no.... it really was an incoherent mess!).
In the Snyder cut, we gain a much broader introduction to all of the main characters, especially to Barry Allen (the Flash) - in a very entertaining pet shop interview scene - and Victor Stone (Cyborg). And Steppenwolf gets more air time to flesh out his character.
- The story I find very similar to the Marvel equivalent: with Darkseid = Thanos; boxes = stones; Avengers = Justice League! But the story is at least now coherent and flows well. Its action set pieces, especially the ultimate defeat of Steppenwolf (nice decap!), are exciting.
- Some of the distracting scenes (the trapped family in the Russian ruins is a key example) have been excised from this version, making for a significant improvement.
Negatives:
- I'm with Mark Kermode in being a little bit mystified by all of the rave 5* reviews for this one. By anyone's imagination, a run time of 242 minutes is over-indulgent.
- Although the epilogue scene, featuring Jared Leto's Joker and a Batman f-bomb, is entertaining, it actually adds nothing to the exposition and could have been dropped to reduce the bladder-testing run time.
- That 4:3 screen ratio! JUST WHY SNYDER, WHY? There's one scene in particular, where all six members of the Justice League line up in the sunset to dramatic swelling music. The screen ratio forces Snyder to film it at a 60 degree angle to get them all in! "Galaxy Quest" intelligently used three different screen ratios, to great visual effect. So I could perhaps understand it if the 'flashback' scenes had been 4:3 and the rest in 16:9. But as it is, the usage is gimmicky, making (imho) no sense for a big fantasy spectacle like this.
- The Junkie XL (as Thomas Holkenborg) soundtrack I'm afraid did nothing for me.
Summary thoughts:
It's a film, for sure. Is it a watchable film now... hmm, yes just about. And it has scenes which indeed are highly entertaining. But if you follow my One Mann's Movies blog you should know by now my view on movies that extend beyond 90 minutes... they need to justify that delta running time. And by outstaying this target by another 90 minutes... and then by ANOTHER 62 minutes borders on taking the <proverbial>. It's not Shakespeare!
Frenetic action in murky water - baffling (2 more)
Scientific inconsistencies
Waterlogged Alien wannabe
Soggy and forgettable
I had a sinking feeling (excuse the pun) about this movie from the word go. It's a lazy approach to 'mansplain' the whole set up for the movie through digital news posts during the main titles. It feels more patronising to the audience than having main titles and then a 'Star Wars-style' synopsis.
Once into the movie, director William Eubank gives us the bare minimum of character set-up for our heroine while she brushes her teeth*. (And no way did she even follow the British Dental Association recommendation of two minutes brushing!) (* Interestingly, the trailer seems to show some above water scenes/dialogue and introductions to the rest of the crew that never made the final cut.)
And then....
BAM!!!
I was thinking that the manic action that follows was some sort of dream or flashback. But no. We are pitched headlong into the story without pause as disaster strikes. It all feels positively indecent.
For we are seven miles down in the Mariana trench, when a drilling station springs a leak.
Now call me a cynic, but I would have *thought* that, at that depth, a single leak would implode the whole station in about 10 seconds flat. But then that wouldn't be cinematic enough, and would be a much shorter movie!
And there are numerous other scientific implausibilities. For example, diving helmets that appear to be able to withstand 15,750 psi of pressure (I Googled it) can be smashed-in by a woman by just bashing it.
Sigh.
We are in 'Alien-lite' territory again. Just as in last year's "The Meg", those pesky humans have disturbed something in its home territory.... and it's suitably pissed-off. The action centres on hippy-chick engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart). The script neatly describes her as a "flat-chested elfin creature"... a fact which every male in the audience has thought (come on guys, admit it , you did!) from the immediately preceding scene.
It was never entirely clear to me what skills Norah was supposed to have.... it seemed to flex from diving to electrical engineering to computer engineering.
Stewart is a handy actress to have in a movie, but here she is mostly relegated to lots of shots of her athletic body running through corridors in her skimpy crop-top and knickers.
Supporting Stewart are veteran French actor Vincent Cassel as the mission captain; "the funny one" Paul (T.J. Miller); the trusty male action figure Smith (John Gallagher Jr.); and Emily - the 'less-flat chested but screamy one' (Jessica Henwick). Emily also gets to run around in a T-shirt and knickers: you kind of quickly get to know the audience the film is trying to appeal to.
As will be obvious if you've seen any of these types of film before, not all of these folks are going to make it.
As this movie is presumably filmed in a small water tank in a Louisiana studio. Clearly the memo said "fill it with murky water so the audience can't see the sides". "And just for good measure, let's film it with hand-help rapidly moving cameras". The result is that a lot of the time, when there was a burst of frenetic underwater action, I had NO IDEA what was actually going on.
In this way, the movie reminded me of the shark B-movie "47 Metres Down" from a few years ago.
This is certainly not "Alien". Although similarly set, this is not "The Abyss" either. It's most similar perhaps to "Life", but without the clever twist ending.
It's also not a truly TERRIBLE movie either. But unfortunately this is one of the most "meh" action movies I've seen in the past year. It's just brain-crushingly forgettable.
There was only one vaguely memorable shot in the whole movie: a final shot of Kristen Stewart. But that just serves to make me think.... 'Stewart deserves much better than this'.
For a movie concerning itself with a lack of oxygen, watching this felt like a waste of it.
Natalie Reyes - a kick-ass non-white female hero (1 more)
Arnie's drapes
Linda Hamilton - acting didn't work for me (1 more)
Confusing storyline (as a continuation of T2)
Enjoyable Hokum
Natalia Reyes plays young Mexican Dani Ramos. Out of the blue she faces danger and tragedy when a ‘Rev 9’ Terminator (Gabriel Luna) zaps itself back in time to Mexico City to dispose of her. But, as in “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”, a protector is on hand. This time it’s in the ripped form of ‘enhanced’ human Grace (Mackenzie Davis). She’s there to protect Dani and maintain whatever key to the future that she holds.
Dani is assisted by Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a vigilante Terminator-fighter wanted in all 50 US States for wanton destruction of property. But even this dynamic duo are no match for the unstoppable force of the Rev 9. So they must turn to an old nemesis from Sarah’s past for assistance.
James Cameron is heavily involved with this one. The decision was made to ‘reboot’ the series as if all the dodgy Terminator movies of the intervening years (after #2) had never happened. (That’s not to say that *I* necessarily found them all dodgy. I quite liked “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” for example, with it’s grim and downbeat ending).
Now I went into this flick understanding that premise. So a flashback scene in the first few minutes of the film left me mightily confused. How on earth did this link to the ‘thumbs up’ scene at the end of “Terminator 2”? #baffled.
But if you ignore this issue, the film settles into what I thought was a nice “Logan“-style modus operandi. There’s an exciting chase sequence along a Mexican highway, but it never overwhelmed the ongoing development of character and motive.
Unfortunately, this didn’t last. Overall, the script lacked momentum, showing a general lack of narrative drive. This is the result, I suspect, of the familiar malaise of ‘team-input’. There are a total of SIX writers contributing to the story and/or screenplay. For example, an opportunity to take a poke at Trump’s Mexican wall isn’t taken; neither are scenes in the topically newsworthy detention centre. It’s as if the “better not: we’ll upset people” button was pressed in either the writing room or by the studio.
Trying to make up for this wallowing second reel, the movie – on boarding a military transport plane – goes to extremes of unbelievable action, both in the sky and below the water. That “Logan-esque” start seems a long way away now.
There’s another element of the movie that confused the hell out of me. The ‘Rev 9’ is able to jump out of it’s “skeleton” which could then pursue actions on its own. Given the Terminator gets FLATTENED – skeleton and all – during certain scenes of the film, this makes little sense unless the skeleton is made of the same ‘liquid metal’ as the body. In which case, why not just have liquid metal that can assume multiple different forms and attack the target from all sides? Perhaps that came in with the “Rev 10”!
But it’s not as bad as I’ve made it sound. This is in no way a terrible movie. As a ‘brain at the door’ piece of sci-fi hocum I really quite enjoyed it. The cast in particular is nicely of our time. There’s a Colombian (not Mexican), feisty and successful female lead in the form of the relatively unknown Reyes. And she has two strong female characters in support. Arnie Schwarzenegger has top billing, but his is really a supporting role.
Natalia Reyes I thought was particularly impressive. The girl has real screen presence, and I look forward to seeing what she does next.
Mackenzie Davis is also terrific as the kick-ass cyborg. I particularly liked the way she executed a neat plot device. Grace has a ‘war-machine’ design… she’s designed for incredible bursts of activity over short periods, but then becomes next to useless as her body crashes and needs ‘rebooting’.
I don’t want to be mean, but there’s probably a reason Linda Hamilton hasn’t been in more mainstream movies since T2. Her acting here is adequate at best and didn’t really cut it for me. The script has delivered her a number of humorous lines – including the iconic “I’ll be back’ – but none of them really land in the delivery.
Instead , it’s Arnie who has the best lines in the movie, delivered with dead-pan wit. His “cover” identity – and particularly his chosen profession – deliver some laugh out loud dialogue.
All in all, I found this a big step up on other Terminator films in the series. The director is Tim Miller, he of “Deadpool“. It’s not bloody Shakespeare, but I found it – warts and all – an enjoyable night out at the movies.
Adult content.... but if you made it this far in the series, that's not a surprise
Filler Anthology, but still fun...
Note: this review is transposted from my personal review blog, and so was originally written several years ago.
So, it has come to this. The sixth and latest collection of American Vampire comics. Now it’s not just my library’s slow acquisition policies holding me back, but the fact that there haven’t been any more published yet! Apparently the creators put the book on hiatus for a while, but they’ve at least started publishing again. I just have to wait for it to hit the collections….This particular collection is a couple of one-shots they put out in the meantime to keep our appetites whetted–one from the main American Vampire team, one with them letting a whole bunch of other comics creators play in their sandbox. Obviously, this review could spoil events from the previous collections.
First off, we have THE LONG ROAD TO HELL. Snyder and Albuquerque set out the story for this one together, with Albuquerque taking over to script and draw the story. Billy Bob and Jo are the Bonnie and Clyde of petty thieves, picking pockets by night to add to their stash. They’re hoping to have enough soon to cover the cost of renting a chapel, but one fateful encounter with a vampire coven recruitment team and everything changes…not for the better, I’m afraid. Jasper Miller is a young orphan, favorite target of a group of bullies. It seems that young Jasper is a very insightful young man, and some of what he knows makes these bullies very nervous, and he decides that the open road would be safer for him than the old orphanage. Vampire hunter Travis Kidd we’ve already met back in Vol. IV, and it’s good to see that he survived the ambush he willingly dove into at the end of that book. Seems to have picked up a katana somewhere in the interim too, which is always cool. Fate has these four on a collision course, and blood will be spilled by the time they reach the end of the road….
Moving on to the American Vampire Anthology, we open with the frame story by Snyder and Albuquerque. THE MAN COMES AROUND is set in 1967 as Skinner Sweet hides out in the middle of nowhere, hoping to avoid the major events he can sense just over the horizon. Seems there’s always someone trying to kill him, though…. Jason Aaron and Declan Shalvey then enlighten us as to what really happened on Roanoke Island in THE LOST COLONY. Here’s a hint, vampires were involved. We then move on to BLEEDING KANSAS, where Albuquerque puts down his pencil and takes a shot at writing the story, leaving the art to Ivo Milazzo. Set against that tumultuous time and place, Albuquerque and Milazzo set down for us a tale of what I can only assume are Henry Jones’ grandparents. Next up, Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes serve up a tale of terror in the frozen north with CANADIAN VAMPIRE as ex-Mountie-turned-bounty-hunter Jack Warhammer is hired to find out what happened to a German fur trading expedition missing in the wild. Becky Cloonan handles both the writing and art for GREED, starring Skinner Sweet and featuring his first encounter with those crazy folks who hail from a place called “Hollywood….” Francesco Francavilla then pulls the same trick for THE PRODUCERS, detailing the birth of a star as he makes a shady deal in exchange for fame and fortune. Gail Simone and Tula Lotay treat us to Hattie Hargrove’s origin story in ESSENCE OF LIFE, showing us just what happened to her that made her willing to screw over her best friend in the world. Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon share both the writing and artist credits for LAST NIGHT, as a lounge singer describes to a reporter the events leading up to the previous evening’s massacre at the club. Finally, Greg Rucka and JP Leon tell the tale of a dying drunk and the lowlifes who try and shanghai him in PORTLAND, 1940.
On the whole, I really enjoyed this as per the usual for this series. The writing was stellar, and the anthology format really served well for the world being depicted. As with any comics anthology, there’s a wide variety of artistic styles represented, and some of those styles I’m not really a fan of, but that’s largely a matter of taste. I could sit here and tell you that I really wasn’t a fan of Ivo Milazzo’s art on BLEEDING KANSAS (which is true), but the next guy might have loved it. I could laud Tula Lotay’s work on ESSENCE OF LIFE (also true), but the next guy may not have been a fan. That’s kind of how it works–peoples’ tastes are pretty subjective. I did enjoy getting into Hattie’s head a bit more than we were able to back when she was introduced, and Skinner Sweet’s adventures are always fun–I’ve mentioned before my weakness for antiheroes. As a historian, Roanoke’s lost colony is always a fascinating topic, and a number of the plot twists contained here were very satisfying if not always surprising. I really can’t wait for the next volume to come out so I can see the payoff to some of the plot threads being set up both here and in the teaser from the end of volume V….
CONTENT: R-rated language. Brutal, bloody vampire violence–these aren’t sparkly, angst-ridden pretty boys, these are monsters through and through. Some explicit and implicit sexual content, including what more or less constitutes a rape. No real occult content, as there isn’t a spiritual element to this version of vampirism.
