FAQ about Time Travel (2009) Review

I’m going for a good film, bad film rhythm with these reviews. So we’re on the good film part of the cycle and I’m going to go somewhat obscure this time, with what I consider a quiet little gem.

FAQ About Time Travel (2009) is, unsurprisingly, a Science Fiction comedy, but unlike a lot of Science fiction comedies you’ll find out there it doesn’t make fun of science fiction. It makes fun with it. That’s an important difference. Taking the ideas and tropes built up around time travel over the years and having a laugh with them. Nerds, geeks and “Imagineers” are in on the joke not the butt of it.

This is anti-Big Bang theory. It doesn’t play to the lowest common denominator. Instead it’s clever, intelligent humour that pays off the viewer’s attention and their interest. Rather than bombard you with gags at a dozen a minute, hoping one will make you laugh, it builds up and earns it’s payoffs. Maybe that was it’s biggest flaw. It asks you to think. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t as successful as it could have been. Instead, much like Clue (1985), it’s slowly building a cult fanbase. A slow burn rather than a quick flash. 

What’s the film about? It’s difficult to explain without giving spoilers, and that’s something I don’t want to be doing. I want you to go and watch it. It’s easily available to download and if you like speculative fiction I can’t recommend this enough. That doesn't mean I won’t try.

Ghostbusters Answer the Call (2016) Review

Ghostbusters Answer the Call (2016)

Well, last week I reviewed Tomorrowland. A good film. Not a brilliant one, but still a good one. The point was not every film has to be Citizen Kane, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some can just be good without being great or iconic. 

Not everything has to be a ten out of ten story. You don’t need to dine out at a fine restaurant every day, if you did it would soon become bland and tasteless. You can enjoy fish and chips from the chippy down the street too and often because of that you’ll enjoy the more elaborate stuff more.

So in this metaphor where does Ghostbusters Answer the Call (2016) come in? It’s the refried Chinese you got yesterday, at the discount counter, that leaves you vomiting into a bucket for the rest of the day. It’s bad, it leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth and quite frankly I could have and should do without it.

The only reason I’m reviewing this mess is that there’s something that bugs me about it. Actually there’s quite a few things that bug me about it and it’s going to be a long list if I have to tick every one off. Fortunately there are other reviews out there that have done a far better job of eviscerating this film and laying its many flaws bare for all to see.

That said there are a couple off arguments against this film that I haven’t seen very often, if at all, and they outline what really went wrong with Ghostbusters. What the real problem, deep down at it’s very core, was. The only way to stop it from happing again is to rummage through the wreckage left in this film’s wake and drag the last dregs of it’s iniquity kicking and screaming into the light.

The light being an obscure blog review perhaps no-one is going to read, but still, it’s a light. Of sorts.

But before all that I have to preface this with something. Two quick points, the first is the cast. I’ve seen a few of the actors in this cast in other things. Most notably Hemsworth, but I’ve seen the main four as well. Some in films I like, others not so much. Casting for me is not really an issue and if you want an all girl team? Heh, why not? The cast and director didn’t appeal to me on paper, but I like to think I was open enough to have given it a chance. The other point is the remake issue. I like the original Ghostbusters, again I think it’s a good film. I don’t quote it, I don’t watch it every halloween as some people do. I don’t set up a shrine and worship at the alter of Harold Ramis. It’s a good film and if I want to watch it I will. It’s a solid eight out of ten for me. So I don’t violently object to a reboot, I would want it done well surely but I don’t object.

The Best Bond?

One of the reasons I restarted these reviews was that I forwarded a link to my ancient, fawning, opinion on Timothy Dalton’s acting when a friend of mine started posting something on Facebook. He said it was good and I should try writing this sort of thing again.

Well among other things it got me thinking about James Bond in general and I want to take this opportunity to do a deconstruction of Bond. What I think works and what I think, in retrospect, didn’t.

So, lets start at the beginning with the creator; Ian Fleming. Here’s the thing a lot of people gloss over, Fleming was the original super spy agent. This is not a joke, it’s completely true. He was part of the founding team of MI6 and was behind one of the most infamous spy operations of the second world war, Operation Mincemeat. If you don’t know the story behind Mincemeat you owe it to yourself to look it up, it is a hollywood drama. It just actually happened!

Anyway after basically inventing the real modern spy industry Fleming created Bond as the ultimate gentleman spy. Cultured, refined, ruthless, charming and ultimately without morals. He was written as an anti-hero, the anti-hero. Not someone to look up to but still respect. The idea was that the bad guys aren’t going to play fair and rather than being the good guy that wins despite this Bond was going to fight dirty first.

This was new at the time. If you look at the classic setup the hero is the so called white hat and always a good guy no matter what and the villain twirls his moustache as he does evil things, evilly. As soon as Bond comes into popularity the Anti-hero is more recognised and that moral black and white we’re all so comfortable with in action get thrown out the window. So the impact of Bond in popular fiction is very, very important and we’re still coming to terms with it in some cases. 

Bond was massively popular when it started as pulp novels, one coming out every year like the latest blockbuster movie. People flocked to the shops to buy the latest adventure to read on holiday, so naturally with such a willing market films were going to follow.

The first Bond film was Dr No (1962) and looking back on it today it is horribly dated. With a lot of visual gags and references going completely over people’s heads. For example there’s one shot, shortly after Bond meets with Dr No, where he sees a painting resting against a banister. It means nothing today, but at the time that was supposed to be a reference to a famous painting that had been stolen a year earlier and was still missing at the time (its since been recovered).

There’s quite a lot of these little facts, enough to keep IMDB trivia hunters occupied for days and that’s something you have to take into account when looking back at Bond over the years. What worked then doesn’t work now. For example Connery’s Bond would often slap and abuse women he thought were hiding something from him, or if they were hysterical. This casual sexism was risqué at the time, done to show he wasn’t a good man, but today it is utterly unacceptable. Moore’s version casually bedding anything with a skirt at the time showed he was virile and charming. Today? Not so much. With our rose-tinted nostalgia glasses firmly in place I’m going to try and review all the actors to play Bond and try and understand the impact they had on each other and the Character as a whole…

Film Review:- Tomorrowland A World Beyond

Well I'm back. I'm going to start trying to write reviews again and I'm got to start with what I think is a hidden gem, that I'm sure is going to become a cult classic in a few years.

Tomorrowland A World Beyond

Now I'm going to try and avoid spoilers, because while the twist is sort of obvious, especially in hindsight, its important you follow the journey with the characters. Having someone like me just blurt out whats going on does take something away from the film and I don't want to ruin it.

It didn't do very well in theatres, and has been a slow burn on DVD / Video / Download and there are a number of reasons for it. The trailers had no idea how to market this movie, trying to portray an action adventure film. Oh it's certainly an adventure film but the action isn't as important as the message. Lots of professional critics latched onto that message and didn't like it, accusing the film of being too preachy and pointing out that the solution was too simple for what is a very complicated problem. Ironically that was the argument from the film, it knew the answer sounded simple in principle, difficult in execution but worth it in the end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, we need to get some context. First of all its based on a Disney theme park ride and that puts you on the defensive immediately. Sure Pirates of the Caribbean was good, at first. It all went down hill quite quickly as it became an overblown mess. Then you have other films with the same principle, like Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion, and the alarm bells start ringing. In fact it was because of this I avoided the film in the cinema and despite my curiosity I only picked it up a couple years after it came out. Which was a shame. In truth it takes a really good director, that has the complete faith of the studio, to take a tricky premise and make it work. The co-writer and director was Brad Bird. Skill and faith wasn't the problem, Brad Bird has films like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles under his belt and also did a fantastic job with his first live action film Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol. He'd proven his mettle and the studio backed off just enough to give him the room he needed to tell the story he wanted. Now sure he wasn't alone in writing and Damon Lindelof, he of Lost fame, was also involved but he was just the co-driver. Bird had his hands on the wheel and it was his baby

Next up we have to look at the cast because aside of two big names, George Clooney and Hugh Laurie, the cast is full of relative new comers. Including Britt Robinson (who does have a long list behind her IMDB page but Tomorrowland is her first "big" role) and Raffey Cassidy. Both young girls are fantastic actors that had great chemistry with each other and the rest of the cast. I will be very surprised if the two of them don't go on to have legendary careers. All this together you have a recipe for a very good movie.

End of year Doctor Who review.

Alright. The year ends and I’ve got a job to finish. Now I’ve tried reviewing recent Doctor Who adventures all year but life, being what it is these days I’ve never had the chance. Now I do.

So what am I gong to review here. In short; Matt Smith’s last two adventures and whatever I can tag on…

So to begin the 50th anniversary special, Day of the Doctor. I loved this episode, great fun to watch and well written. Tenant slipped back into the role like he was riding a bike, he even still fit the old brown suit (something he and Piper joked about behind the scenes). Smith bounced off both him and Hurt expertly, having buckets of fun along the way laughing at himself. Hurt was going to be my big sticking point, I couldn’t be sure he would be the Doctor or a parody. No disrespect to his acting (he is good) but you need time to create and settle into a role. Coming in for a one off special doesn’t give you that time. I forgot about Moffat’s writing, Hurt hit all the right notes to be one of the best Doctors we never had.

Supporting cast had to pull up their game to match these three and they did. Piper came back, but not as Rose. Big point that. As I’ve said before I hate Rose, she was badly written to start with. While we were told she was kind, and cared all we saw was a silly girl more than willing to sacrifice the whole world for a sleeting selfish moment. Instead of the badly written Rose Piper came back as the Bad Wolf / interface of The Moment. Proving that while I might not like the roles she played Piper is actually a good actress.

Linkara's Creative Challange

Okay Linkara (AKA Lewis Lovhaug) An on line video reviewer just posted a creative writing challenge. I've been thinking about this and here we go.

First of all background; during his reviews of comic books both old and new Linkara has vast storylines with some fairly competent plots. Basically it's his way of saying "Yes I can do it too, and better than you" to the comics he reviews. Believe me when I say he really can. Having little to no life to speak of I've been following these storylines for awhile and enjoyed them. 

The challenge is how would you defeat a villain like the Entity? Now the Entity was one of the threats that Linkara has faced. A non-corporal creature with the ability to create glitches in the fabric of reality. Erasing people objects and things from existence at a whim. As it self is a glitch it exists outside of what we would call reality, making it invincible. An unstoppable force of pure chaos it considered itself a Lovecraftian Outer God. Skipping across all realities, inhabiting all and none of them. A true multi-versal being  

Linkara defeated it (spoilers by the way) by using the Kirk method of the logical half nelson. Basically convincing it that it's endless conquering of existence would and could only end with it having to eventually destroy itself. Spurred on by the classic; "If you know everything, tell me what happens when YOU die?" The Entity un-made itself.

So the question is how would I defeat it if I was writing it. The logical half nelson works pretty well, but I'd have gone a different route. Multi-verse theory states that every decision and every possibility must happen, just some where else. The Multi-verse is simple too big. Imagine the million possibilities and decisions we make every second. One person, everything we do is a decision. The amount of ways I could write this article is almost uncountable, and those spelling mistakes I catch and those I don't. So while Linkara's option was "What then?" my first reaction is to point out just how futile the idea is in the first place.

Another option would be the recursive "Why" trick. Just respond to every answer with the question "But why?" Eventually you unravel their intentions to the point where even they aren't sure why they are doing anything. That or when you have the ultimate motivation you shred that with common sense, more logic and of course common sense.

They are still both variations on the same theme, I on the other hand always like to be a little more original. So how would I go for it? Appeal to another Outer God, warning them of the problem and letting them deal with it? Time travel to before it became a threat and lay a trap before giving myself the ability to travel in time, Bill and Ted style? Convince it to divide by zero? Appeal to it's vanity and convince it to spare me in the name of entertainment while it gobbles up all the rest of existence? 

All valid plans, in context at least, but no. They all have too many holes, relying on outside forces that may or may not work. If I was going to gamble I'd gamble big. I'd have challenged it to a game. It would have to be chess, or some other game with strict rules that it would have to agree to, but that's the best alternative. Or mix it with the Kirk method. Talking while playing.

There's enough evidence that this would work, during the storyline the Entity toys with, plays with Linkara as a cat would play with a mouse. It's obviously looking for entertainment. From my understanding of the character it would jump at the chance to prove just how clever it was, how superior. Hubris is often the best weakness to exploit. Even knowing what you're doing your opponent will still walk right into it.

That's my answer to your challenge Lewis. Challenge The Entity to a game:- the winner lives, the loser dies. The game in question however would not be chess, but Yu-gi-oh! Oh and your finishing trick, the item in you're third inventory slot could have been a Kuriboh card… Boom, using the entity's own trick against it!

Enjoy!

At Worlds End Review

You ever watched a football match, or Cricket, or any sport really and this happens:- It's your favourite team, they're legendary in your eyes, and been a good match so far. Sure there's something off about the way your team's playing, but you chalk that up to nerves, or that they're playing tactics you're not familiar with. Then, in the last few minutes, the other side scores an equaliser. Your heart's in your mouth as the ref calls extra time. Boom, they come out swinging while your team just flounders. The match is lost and you head down to the pub to blitz the whole thing from your memory.

That is exactly what happens in Pegg and Wright's new film At Worlds End. They had all the ingredients, but in the end it all went wrong. And, more importantly, I can tell you why and exactly where it fumbled. And that's the end of that metaphor, I hope.

Quick summery, and there are spoilers so if you don't want them you've already got my opinion. Good start, fun middle, botched ending but still worth seeing.