Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children

Director: Tim Burton
Running time: 127 minutes
Certificate: 12A


Based on a book I haven't read but I am aware of, Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children is directed by Tim Burton, and without knowing the source material, Burton seems to be a good fit. Burton is one of the few directors who has a distinct creative style, which is why his best films are those of original source material, when he adapts other peoples work it usually ends up a mess (Alice in wonderland and Charlie and the chocolate factory to name but a few). But this adaptation is better than those, but it still has a lot of problems.

Jacob's (Asa Butterfield) grandfather (Terence Stamp) has always told him stories of monsters, and the peculiar children he met while living in an orphanage during the second world war. When he dies he leaves behind a book with a letter from a certain Alma Peregrine, which leads Jacob to go to the Island where the Children's orphanage is. On arrival he uncovers mysteries about himself, his grandfather, as well as the house itself.

The film is gorgeous, the locations and the visual effects are really impressive, there are little moments that really take your breath away. The characters are interesting, even if much of the supporting cast are just there in the background. And each of the peculiar powers of the children are effective enough so that the character's are humane and relatable, rather than just superhero caricatures.

Of the peculiar children, only Emma Bloom (Ella Purnell) is given much depth, she becomes a love interest to Jacob, and whose peculiarity is that she is as light as air. Eva Green is wonderfully cast as Miss Peregrine, she isn't the manic and over powerful character I had imagined her to be. But her role is much smaller than I expected, and she doesn't really do that much in the grand scheme of things.

Samuel Jackson pops up in the last third of the film as the villain, Mr Barron, who appears to come from an entirely different film altogether. Not only is the performance very by the numbers, the look of the character is bland compared with everything else. All in all, the character is forgettable.

It is also when the villain shows up that the film begins to fall by the wayside, serious plot points just happen and then rush along. Which is a shame because the first the two thirds of the film build along really well, with lots of exposition (something I really liked and found engaging). Some of the plot twists work, and there is real emotion to some of the characters, but it's really hard to care when most of them have little development, and when the plot begins to get muddled towards the end.

Another problem is the tone, while centred on a group of children and marketed as a children's story, there are a few moments that are genuinely shocking even for an adult, a scene with brought back to life baby dolls fighting with knives is one example. And there are a number of scares that might be too frightening for children below the age of seven or eight.

The film dances around important themes of age and belonging, but never really goes anywhere with anything. That's not to say that there aren't moments of real emotion that are thought provoking. But in the end it all feels weightless, and style over substance.

Verdict: I would just about recommend seeing the film, especially if you're a Tim Burton fan, but don't break your back over it.

3/5

C

      

Blair Witch review

Director: Adam Wingard
Running time: 89 minutes
Certificate: 15

The 1999 Blair Witch Project was something of a revelation, not only did it father the found footage genre but it was a very effective horror film that had plenty of scares. Underpinning it were characters we cared about, which made the film both believable and full of tension as the trauma unfolded. Which is one of many reasons Blair Witch disappoints on so many levels, and ends up being a letdown.

Ignoring the first sequel to the series Book of Shadows, Blair Witch begins twenty years after the original film, when James Donahue (James Allen McCune) comes across an uploaded clip of his missing sister's recording of when she investigated the Blair Witch legend in Burkittsville Forest. With a few friends Lisa Arlington (Callie Hernandez), Peter Jones (Brandon Scott) and Ashley Bennett (Corbin Reid) he meets up with the person who uploaded the clip onto YouTube, so they can be taken to the place where her camera was found.

The film slowly builds up to everyone setting up camp before things get really loud and predictable. Until the last ten minutes almost all of the apparent scares are manufactured and cliched. You have your usual jump scares such as characters suddenly appearing in frame to scare whoever's point of view we are seeing, and strange noises appearing off-screen just so one of the character's can go investigate in the dark by themselves.

None of it is remotely effective because everything is so bloody loud, unlike the original, the sound never feels natural to the surroundings, making it obvious that a sound effect button has been cranked up to eleven and put into the film in post production. So nothing feels real, not once can you imagine anything onscreen actually happening, of which the original for all its faults, managed to do. Maybe the found footage horror genre has just run out of new ways to work?

While the characters have clear motivation and agency, they are all rather forgettable, you'll forget their names within an hour of the film ending. And like many horror films they do the most stupidest things that get themselves killed.

To its credit the film does get better in the last ten minutes, where for the first time something terrifying actually happens, bringing about a real sense of urgency and claustrophobia. It is also the only time that the shaky cam works.

But this is taken away by a very anti-climatic ending.

Verdict- Unless you absolutely loved the original and have some free time to spare I would not recommend seeing Blair Witch. It's not so bad that it's unwatchable it's just wasted potential that offers nothing new, I'd wait for a rental.

D
2.5/5 (bordering on 2, couldn't decide)        

Don't Breathe review

Director: Fede Alvarez
Certificate: 15
Running time: 88 minutes


Without doubt one of the best horror/thrillers I have ever watched

I hardly ever get scared from movies, there are some that I might find disturbingly violent and gory, but rarely do I feel the peril of the characters onscreen. Which is Don't Breathe's greatest triumph, at every beat I was thoroughly involved in the eventual cat and mouse nature of the film's premise, and never once did I predict its twist and turns.

Set in Detroit, the plot is about a group of three burglars who break into the home of a blind war veteran (Stephen Lang), hoping to get the compensation money he received when his daughter was killed in a car accident. Rocky (Jane Levy) is from a broken home and plans to move to California with her sister, Alex (Dylan Minnette) is the sympathetic one with a conscious, and Money (Daniel Zovatto) is the brash and arrogant one.

As you'd expect, things don't quite go to plan and they eventually have to fight for their own survival. In most house invasion movies, the house is nothing more than just a setting, in Don't Breathe it feels like a villain (in this case) within itself, a place that is inescapable. It's helped by the way the film is shot, most horror/thrillers are often made so that the locations are nothing more than wallpaper, always reminding the audience that they are looking in from the outside, a voyeur of sorts. But Don't Breathe is closed in and personal, which creates a real feeling of dread and tension that never once lets you off the hook.    

The villain is unique as well, while still coming across as excruciatingly antagonistic he actually has a vulnerability, he isn't just some supernatural force of power with little motivation other than to kill for the sake of it. So the stakes are always high.

The violence is raw but not gratuitous, there are a few brutal moments where you might have to look away for a second or two, but nothing that is particularly upsetting.

It's not all good though, the last third is a bit exhausting and derivative, nothing that will take you out of the film, but the gradual pace of the film suddenly goes up one too many gears. And the ending is a little anti climatic, while it doesn't ruin the experience, the payoff just feels short changed.

Verdict: With superb performances all round, Don't Breathe is one of the best films I've seen this year, and one of the best edge of your seat thrillers I have ever seen. I would highly recommend this film, unmissable. 

A, 8/10      

   

Why 'Lost in Translation' speaks to me

Lost in Translation was released in 2003, starring Bill Murray and a then unknown Scarlett Johansson. It was a sleeper hit that earned $120 million on a $4 million budget, and won countless awards. I happened to come across it by accident, and I can't remember the first time I watched my mum's DVD copy ( at the time I was not quite the film buff I am now), but I've loved it ever since and there's something about it that has touched my heart ever since, no matter how many times I watch it.

Focused on two strangers in a foreign country (Japan, Tokyo) who are at a crossroads in their lives, they meet each other in the hotel they're staying in and a fleeting friendship begins for the time they are there. Others might disagree but I think their relationship is that of a friendship rather than anything physically intimidate.

On the surface level, a cynic might think that the film is shallow and meaningless, and about two self absorbed people who happen to be in a place with cultural differences that they are not used to. But, at heart 'Lost In Translation' is a story about finding someone missing from your life, someone you can create moments with, someone who is there when no one else is.

I've never had someone that's come into my life in that way, no one who I could seriously say I've bonded with in an instant, and then disappeared from their life not long afterwards. Which is a shame, it's something I long for, because a fleeting friendship with moments is better than a long term one of convenience.

What's particularly fascinating is that neither of the lead characters actually introduce themselves to one another, although Charlotte (Johansson) is aware of Bob's (Murray) fame (Bob was a film star during the 1970s).

While watching 'Lost in Translation' one can't help but feel a sense of loneliness, the enchanting soundtrack helps, and so does the depiction of Tokyo. Like most big cities it's shown as a place where you can be surrounded by countless people but still feel lonesome.

From my own narrow experiences, being alone in a foreign place can be just as daunting as it is thrilling. So I can imagine finding someone you can connect with can make the world of difference, and the experience that much better.

(spoiler alert)


The ending is somewhat heartbreaking, because although the film isn't long we feel like we've been with the characters for far longer. We might not know these people intricately but we've enjoyed their emotional journey together. So in that last moment that they are together, clenching one another before parting ways and Bob leaving the city, makes the whole thing worth it. As much as I might like to see them together once again, their moments during the film are enough for a lifetime.

The film ends with Bob exiting Tokyo with the song 'Just like Honey' (Jesus and Mary chain) playing over the background. It's one of the few times that we get a great scope of the city in daylight, opposite to Bob's introduction to the city on entering at the beginning of the film. All great experiences are a means to an end, but worth living for.

If you haven't seen Lost in Translation, please do so.

No man's sky review

Platform: Playstation 4

A flawed but absorbing space adventure like nothing I've played before

Eighteen quintillion planets to explore and discover, just the sheer number is unimaginable, and it's only when you go out into space for the first time and open up the galactic map does that number really hit you. While it's impossible to explore each of them, the sheer ambition of No Man's Sky really is something to behold, and despite all of its failings, Hello Games should be applauded for its efforts.

At heart No Man's Sky is a first person survival game as much as it is about exploration, you start on a randomly selected planet in a star system on the outskirts of the galaxy, your Starship has crashed and in pieces. So it's up to you find the materials to repair it so you can leave the planet for space and get to the centre of the galactic core. 

The first few hours of the game act as an introductory tutorial as you learn more about how to mine the materials you need for your ship. It can be a bit of a slog at first, but once you fix your Starship, the mechanics of the game begin to flow, and it doesn't really change much from there on.

It is only by upgrading and crafting your inventory that you can explore the vast reaches of space and mine the best materials from the planets you visit. There are three kinds of inventory slots, an Exo-suit, one for your Starship, and another is your multi-tool. The inventory system is very basic but fiddly, and until you upgrade it extensively it can be a bit of a chore to use, and it doesn't help that you have to open up the menu to be able use it. But it does become less of a problem the further you progress and the more items you have.

The objective on each of the planets is the same throughout, as you fly from one question marker to the next, finding upgrade formulas, mining materials and visiting trade outposts or alien monoliths. After a while this does become tedious, especially if the planets you come across are boring. But the game is saved by the great feeling of progression you get from upgrading your inventory, and trading the resources you've mined so that you can acquire better Starships to warp to other star systems with.   

The planets are all procedurally designed, so all eighteen quintillion of them have various differences from one another. You will encounter glorious shades of forest planets to ocean ones, right down to bland rock planets. After a while, the wonderment of each of them begins to fade as the differences are often very minor, and for every five planets that you visit, maybe only one of them might actually be interesting.

Life on these planets is sparse, and the designs of the species you do encounter are mixture of dinosaurs and zoo animals. Discovering them is rewarding at first, because just like the planets, you can name them once discovered, but it begins to wear off very soon as you realise that they're for the most part all nearly identical, and act as nothing more than wallpaper to the planets landscape. The interaction with the species is also quite limited, as you can feed them and nothing much else, although you may have to kill some if they're hostile.

There are three types of alien NPCs in the game, all have different personas, and you can learn their own individual languages by opening monoliths on the planets you visit. But once again your interaction with them is very limited and they are more or less cardboard characters, and you will only ever encounter them in space stations and trading posts.

The exploration of space is wonderful at first but it quickly becomes static, freighters you see are just kind of there, and you can't land on asteroids as the developers had promised. But going from one star system to the next is a very rewarding, and each star system is unique from one another. Just as there are awe inspiring views from the different planets you visit, the same can be said when you see the alignment and scale of the different star systems you explore.

The combat in space and on the ground is passable at best, hostile species are rare, but on each planet you will have to deal with robots called Sentinels which attack you if you cause too much harm to the planet you're on. In space you will have to deal with pirates which attack you, none of this is particularly challenging or exciting, but it's only a minor part of the game that won't detract from your overall experience, but it could have been better.

Although No Man's Sky is a shared universe to some degree, with eighteen quintillion planets in the game it's unlikely that you will visit other players discoveries all too often, which does ask the question of what the point of it all is? A better mapping system to connect players discoveries is a real missed opportunity. But in No Man's Sky the journey is far greater than the destination.

No Man's Sky is bold and like no other game I've played before, and without doubt the moments of inspiration can't take away the game's eventual repetitiveness. Although shallow, the game still has me hooked because I want to keep discovering planets in this shared universe, and with the promised updates the game could still get better.

If you enjoy playing games by yourself and willing to try something that's different to what you might have played before then No Man's Sky is for you. If you're a sceptic and curious, then wait for a deep sale.

Verdict: 7/10

  

    

Suicide Squad review

Director: David Ayer
Running time: 123 minutes

A wasted opportunity with a few nuggets of redemption

Much like Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad is probably an idea better in concept than it ever could be in execution. A film about an ensemble of comic book bad guys as the main protagonists has never been done before, and the trailers were effective with its dark tone and offbeat characters.

Set after Superman's death, the government assemble a group of some of the most villainous characters from the DC lore, and send them into Midway city to defeat an enigmatic entity.

There are moments when Suicide Squad works, but those moments are few and far between. There is little action to really speak of, sure there's a few gunfights before the eventual final showdown with the main villain (one of the most generic in a comic book film). But none of the action is exciting, it's all blandly generic with no weight behind it because the story is scant at best, and the characters motivations are weak meaning that nothing much is ever really at stake.

It isn't helped when the locations are so boring and contained, only about three or four streets and a skyscraper actually take place in the empty city of Midway.

The first twenty minutes of the film are by far its best, as each of the characters have small monologue introductions alongside bizarre choices of music (some work while others are just distracting). Because of its snappy pace and exposition, in its entire run time the beginning of the film is the only time when anything feels engaging. Of the ensemble of characters, only two of them are actually interesting, and it is these characters that save the whole thing from being criminally bad.

Will Smith's screen presence and zippy line delivery just about brings Deadshot to life, an otherwise hokey character who has a daughter he misses (shown through a number of flashbacks). He's the only character with any form of a story arc, and the one with the most screen time and emotional connection to.

Margot Robbie is fine as Harley Quinn, the star attraction and probably the only character those not too familiar with the DC universe might have a vague recognition of. Her role is more or less eye candy with an abundance of one liners for comic relief, sometimes it works but other times it just comes across as flat, and trying too hard. The script doesn't really do the role any justice.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is impressively intimidating as the government official who is co-coordinating the entire operation. Who would have thought she'd turned out more villainous than the actual suicide squad.

Those looking forward to the Joker (Jared Leto) will be disappointed, who is nothing more than a glorified cameo with less than ten minutes of screen time. Appearing as a mob boss cloaked up in jewellery and colourful attire. I wasn't too impressed, the character wasn't frightening or funny, just creepy, so I'll need to see this interpretation in a bigger role.

The other characters might as well be wallpaper, characters with props and little else. The lack of any real action set piece doesn't help because it means the non existent character development can't be glossed over. Killer Croc, one of the most fearsome Batman villains literally has nothing to do.

And the plot is a bit of a mess, suffering the same problems that Batman V Superman had, where the narrative is full of scenes that offer nothing to the central plot, and with subplots introduced and forgotten.

All in all, Suicide Squad is mildly entertaining, the casting is nigh on perfect and it is by no means a bad film, but one with huge wasted potential that doesn't live up to the hype that proceeded it. By the time the credits rolled I wondered what the whole point of it was.

Verdict: 2.5/5


         

Finding Dory: review

Director: Andrew Stanton
Running time: 97 minutes

Pixar produce another fine addition to their library

No film studio has had the consistent influx of quality content quite like Pixar, The Good Dinosaur might have been a bit of misstep. But on the whole, each of their animated features have something special that can't be replicated by other animation studios. Which is why their films are beloved by those of all ages.

Set one year after Finding Nemo. Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), an unrelentingly upbeat, blue fish with a short memory span suddenly gets flashbacks from her childhood, where she once had a family before losing them. She can only recall that they lived in the Morro Bay, so she sets out to find them with returning characters Marlin and Nemo. Their journey eventually leads them to an aquarium, where they meet and are helped by a grumpy, red octopus called Hank (Ed O'Neill).

Finding Dory is full of vivid colour, the visuals ooze off of the screen and it moulds well with the optimistic tone of the film. With that said, towards the end there are a few teary moments (it wouldn't be a Pixar film without one).

As we'd expect from Pixar, the wonderfully designed and charming characters are what's at the heart of the film. With its snappy dialogue, you can't help but root for all of the characters because while flawed they're all innocent enough in their goals to care about.

The final third of the film is far more action-centric than I expected, with a crazy escape plan involving a lorry bursting through a highway on the wrong side of the road. Which seemed a little out of place, but still very entertaining nevertheless.

Also, at the centre of Finding Dory is a positive message about family, belonging and never giving up on those you love. Dory's flashbacks to her childhood are a reminder of how we take our loved ones for granted until they are no longer with us.

What stops Finding Dory from being sublime is its rushed final act, and at times it can feel emotionally manipulative. And to be honest it is inferior to Finding Nemo. 

Verdict: 4/5