Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen - Dir. Michael Bay

Michael Bay’s first ‘Transformers’ film gave the audience an entertaining blow of knock-out proportions and I (like many others) left the cinema with a childish grin from ear-to-ear after watching two and a half hours of robots beating seven bells of scrap metal out of each other, however the sequel ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ felt like nothing more than a soft jab into the abdomen. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, I found it tedious, incredibly boring at times, and apart from one or two sequences, the action felt very stale and was concerned more about how each explosion could out-do each other for the extended destruction of our dear planet.

So I will start by addressing what made the first film so enjoyable for me; the god-damn action! With the colossal budget and the build-up of how this was going to be ‘bigger’ and ultimately ‘better’, I was expecting a computer generated onslaught of pure, unadulterated robot-o et robot-o brutality, but sadly only found two scenes out of the whole two hours and thirty minutes running time that matched the first film for childish squealing and prolonged smiling of excitement. One came an hour into the film as Optimus Prime battled his way spectacularly through a forest of evil Decepticon Robots at a vicious pace, while the second scene was at the very end of the film as Bumblebee had a very short, yet enjoyable tussle with Rampage. Aside from these two; battle, fight, action (what-ever you wish to call them) sequences, Michael Bay seemed to be more concerned with how he could create larger and louder explosions with every rocket being fired, or bomb being dropped. The perfect example is in the drawn out final sequence in which we are continually blocked from seeing the actual robotic destruction take place as the screen fills with copious amounts of dust, smoke and sand due to the amount of explosives being thrown around! With the entertainment value slightly eroded for myself, I found little joy in the rest of the film.

From viewing just the first thirty minutes of ‘Fallen’ I noticed Michael Bay seems to have somewhat of a penchant for the use of pointless long-angle shots and slow-motion sequences. If you removed all the pointless, unemotional, tedious scenes involving the sour intimate embraces by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox (which takes the biscuit in one scene as the camera constantly revolves around both parties around forty-three times before eventually ending, not only the most annoying scene of the film, but also my suicide attempt due to boredom) then the film would be considerably shorter and a lot more engaging. This is another problem the film comes up against, a running time at nearly more than two and a half hours, yet it could quite easily have had at least forty minutes of ‘filler’ material trimmed (such as various incredibly unfunny acts involving Judy Witwicky), and some of the cringe-worthy jokes toned down or removed (however, maybe it’s just me, as some of the jokes did get a good reaction from some of the younger members of the audience). Oh and there is that much information thrown at you during the time that the film is on-screen that you’ll be hard pressed to understand everything that is going on, that is if you are actually trying to follow the plot and the history/motives regarding the new characters entwined within the Transformers universe.

I went into ‘Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen’ with quite low expectations, I wasn’t expecting to see a great film, nor was I really expecting to see a good film from the King of the Cinematic Explosions, but I was hoping for one thing; to be entertained with violent robots hacking each other to bits in a blaze of beautiful destructive glory. But this was unfortunately not fulfilled for me. When I saw Michael Bay’s first ‘Transformers’ film I was sat on the edge of my seat throughout as every action sequence made my jaw-drop a few feet, it was something different and something special, however during ‘Fallen’ I found myself for the majority of the film propping my own head up with my palm, trying to keep myself awake...

Doghouse - Dir. Jake West

Vince (Stephen Graham) is going through the final stages of his divorce and to help him through this period his friends Mikey (Noel Clarke) and Neil (Danny Dyer) decide to take him and a few of the other boys to a remote village outside the humdrum of their London lives to get, in Dyer's own words; 's**tfaced'. However, when they turn up to the incredibly eerie village of Moodley to find flesh-eating, man-hating, cannibalistic women who want to do nothing more than rip out their internal organs and eat them for breakfast, the boys realise they have bitten more than they can chew and must fight their way through a barrage of blood-thirsty women in the most misogynistic way imaginable.

The premise of the film completely reflects the manner in which Jake West approaches this project, with a gleeful nod towards plenty of harmless sexist humour and cheap gory death sequences that are all nice, light-hearted and fun. Neil, Vince and Mikey are all your typical working-class likely lads out to simply flirt with the opposite sex and drink as much as their body-weight, with Danny Dyer in particular needing to place little effort in recreating his Cockney 'laddish' persona (yet again) on the big-screen. While Dave Schaffer's script contains many easy-going humorous gags to keep your attention ticking over while the next axe, gnome or sword heads to try and end the boy's misogynistic ways and eliminate the male chromosome all in one.

'Doghouse' is nowhere near the heights of Pegg/Frost's rom-zom-com-supremo 'Shaun of the Dead', but it isn't the worst film you will see this year. At a short running time of 85 minutes, you'll be cheaply entertained with boys being boys and women being...err, evil, vicious, un-relentless and, well women (just kidding!). This a film you'd probably enjoy seeing more after you've been kicked out the local Pub at closing time and are heading home with your Chicken Jalfrezi in one hand and the DVD in the other.

Awaydays - Dir. Pat Holden

‘Awaydays’ is not your typical football hooligan film, the sub-culture of football hooliganism in the early years of Thatcher’s Britain is there to set the brooding scene, however it is evocative the homo-erotic relationship between Carty (Nicky Bell) and the eccentric Elvis (Liam Boyle) that takes centre stage and gives Paul Holden’s film slightly more depth than simply being a film about men taking out their boredom in the form of fighting on a Saturday afternoon.

Paul Carty is a suburban male who is drawn towards the ‘The Pack’, a group of thugs who take their excitement from fighting on a Saturday afternoon all across Britain, through these encounters he grows closer and closer with a bohemian working-class character in Elvis. Elvis just wants to move away to Berlin and start a new life around people who understand him, while Carty just wants to find direction in his life after his mother’s death. As they connect through their mutual love of Bowie, the Liverpudlian music scene and Art, they develop an increasingly complex relationship that is bordering on the homoerotic. It is this intricate bond between these two seemingly different, yet very similar and flawed ‘men’ that keeps the film ticking over. If you removed this key component then the film falls a little flat, with Kevin Sampson’s script missing out many explanations to key elements such as why Carty is drawn towards the allure of the ‘The Pack’ in the first place and the death of John. With that said, it is hauntingly shot with a soundtrack that compliments Pat Holden’s sombre directorial style, and even though at times he has a tendency to delve too much into the LSD-induced hallucinogenic state’s of both boys minds, he does it with little expense to the viewer.

If you want a film that doesn’t simply look at the male phenomenon of having a good scrap on a Saturday afternoon because we’re all bored and working class zombies in a capitalist machine (‘Football Factory’, ‘Green Street’) then ‘Awaydays’ is for you, as it offers just that bit more and is akin to something of a ‘football-love-story’.

Drag Me To Hell - Dir. Sam Raimi

‘Drag Me To Hell’ is a god-damn good film, floating in a sea of horror plagued with sunken Hollywood remakes, and it also gives a revitalising kick to the comedy-horror genre.

Christine (Alison Lohman) is told to make the ‘hard’ decisions in her job at the local bank to seal a promotion, and the weathered old gypsy Mrs Ganush (Lorna Raver) is the unfortunate victim of this selfish act of personal greed and capitalism. But, she gets the last scratch (laugh, ruler, bite...) as she places a Lamia curse upon Christine. In three days she will be dragged into the depths of hell by an unspeakable evil force. What follows is a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat, over-the-top, suspense fuelled ride (reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s early Evil Dead films) through ninety-minutes of scary, disgusting and at times quite humorous (anvil, anybody?) scenes that make ‘DMTH’ an enjoyable and impressive film.

Raimi does what he does best, by allowing the surroundings to come to life – the rattling of doors and windows, the use of shadows – he takes a hold of the age old cinematic device of keeping the vision and display of the Lamia at bay and allowing our minds to fill in the blanks. A perfect example is a scene in which Christine is tripped in her own bedroom by the forces beyond. How can you combat, defeat or avoid something if you don’t know what, where or who it is. The tried-and-tested common horror conventions coupled with the slick editing of Bob Murawski (who virtually creates and sustains the menace of the penultimate scene), a solid central performance of Alison Lohman (who now knows the dangers of refusing a loan extension!) and the knowledgeable direction and experience of Sam Raimi makes ‘Drag Me To Hell’ one of the fair few horror films worth the admittance fee.

This film is nothing new, and nothing different. You will notice the subtle nods and homage’s through the humour and disgusting inventiveness of Raimi to the various films of the same veneer in the 1980’s and the early 1990’s, but what makes this film stand-out is that it ticks all the right boxes in audience expectation. It will make you jump, keep you tense, release a giggle and squirm a little, and most importantly: it is fun.

Fighting - Dir. Dito Montiel

Dito Montiel's film has been advertised as the 'Rocky of our generation', however I do believe they were referring to the fifth film in the Rocky franchise. Predictable, boring, tedious, lifeless are just a few words I could use to describe this film, but I really only need to use one; terrible.

Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) is your typical working-class boy who is taken under the wing of an ageing con-man named Harvey (Terrence Howard) and given the opportunity to make his American dream come true by participating in various back-room bare-knuckle fights. Oh, and the stereotypical love-interest in the form Zulay (Zulay Henao) is also thrown into the mix. Now, despite this description describing various films from the last few years (never mind the last few decades), it contains three huge, jaw-shattering constraints:

1) Despite being named Fighting, the film ironically contains very little fighting or brawling in regards to its hundred-minute running time. And when we do get to see some face-bruising action, the Director seems to get incredibly giddy with the camera and what we are left with is some Paul Greengrass jerkiness that allows you to observe very little especially when the camera is thrown into the heart of the action.

2) Terrence Howard puts a little effort into his character and drags out a performance worthy of a film better than this, however Channing Tatum does not follow his lead. His stony expression and Brando-style mumbling is just plain annoying and unconvincing, yet he is the lead protagonist at the forefront of the film, and his performance drags the film down considerably.

3) Finally, Munic and Montiel's script has about as much weight as a feather and as punch as a fighter out-cold on the mat. We learn little about the characters until late into the film when there life stories seem to just be thrown around quickly to fill various plot-holes. While, the majority of the dialogue is just clichéd and cringe-worthy, most notably a scene at the end of the film that precedes the final fight sequence, which can only be described as hilariously idiotic.

Fighting is crime against cinema. It is a film which gives the audience absolutely nothing, yet takes from them their hard-earned cash in the form of their admittance fee. The only reason I can think why this film was distributed to theatres instead of being a straight-to-DVD affair, is down to the influence of having a star like Terrence Howard in the picture. Don't waste your time or money on this abomination.

In the Loop - Dir. Armando Iannucci

One of the best political satirical comedies in years! ‘In The Loop’ is a spin-off (kind-of) of the fantastic British comedy ‘The Thick of It’, and follows Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), a Cabinet Minister who makes a series of unfortunate slip-ups, the first is when he tells an interviewer that he believes war (always referred to as the invasion or the war, but never Iraq or potentially Afghanistan) is “unforeseeable” before telling journalists under pressure that you have to conquer a mountain of conflict on the path of peace. These mistakes place him in the middle of a diplomatic mine-field as both, the anti-war constabulary led by General Miller (James Gandolfini) and the Assistant Secretary of Diplomacy Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), and the gung-ho supporter of war Linton Barwick (David Rasche) - so crazy he keeps a live grenade as a paperweight - want Simon as a transatlantic partner to support their cause. Should he put his conscience or his political career first? Oh, and throw in hilariously vicious Senior British Press Office Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and a bumbling Advisor to the minster (Toby played by Chris Addison) and you have one of the best political satires to come from Britain in years.

What makes the film work so well is the incredibly sharp witty script from a collaboration of writers that keeps the gag-per-minute counter ticking. Every meeting, confrontation political mishap is cradled with joke after joke whether they are subtle references to the cynicism and underhandedness in the current (or foregone) political climate or simply one of Malcolm Tucker’s fantastic rants – “I’m going to tear out your shinbone, split it in two and stab you to f**king death with it” - at ineptitude of everybody around him. Every actor and actress involved give solid performances as the flawed members of the tense political world. While Simon’s central story keeps the film on the ground despite a few diplomatic detours (that are still hilarious, even though they take up little of the running of time).

Armando Iannucci has already proven to the British public that he can create entertainment for the TV-masses and ‘In The Loop’ proves he also has the skills to replicate this on a wider, international, big-screen scale as well. It’s intelligent, it’s offensive, and it’s bleeding funny. See this film!

Crank 2: High Voltage - Dir. Neveldine and Taylor

Jason Statham returns as the indestructible Chev Chelios, first they poisoned his system and now they have taken his strawberry tart (heart), and he will go to every single violent-induced length to get it back. However, despite the film being incredibly outrageous with plenty of violence, nudity and gratuitous swearing on show, the film lacks any of the charm that the first film threw in your face at a ridiculous speed.

Jason Statham pulls his one-sided acting persona of a man on a revenge-trip out of the bag (mind, he has it down to a tee now...) and the supporting cast has very little in the way of dialogue, except for when they are screaming for mercy or aiming various weapons at Statham. Yet the most interesting aspect for me was the way in which Neveldine and Taylor used various hand-held cameras to get ‘into the heart of the action’, which worked at times and created some incredibly interesting action shots, but was let down by the editing, which to me, made the majority of scenes (combined with the soundtrack) seem nothing more than extended music videos (especially with the constant juxtapositioning of parallel shots side-by-side).

‘Crank – High Voltage’ is the epitome of the ‘no-brained action flick’. It seemed as if the directors had decided to see how far they could go after the trivial success of ‘Crank’ and while the film contains every aspect available to get male testosterone pumping, and that’s all the film does. It’s more outrageous than ‘Crank’, but in no way better than the first film.