Reviews
Last Ride
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
| Directed by: | Glendyn Ivin |
| Written by: | Mac Gudgeon |
| Starring: | Hugo Weaving, Tom Russell, Anita Hegh, John Brumpton, Sonya Suares, Kelton Pell |
| Released: | July 2, 2009 |
| Grade: | A- |
Six years ago, Australian filmmaker Glendyn Ivin won the best short film award at the Cannes Film Festival for Cracker Bag. This is about as big as it gets for any budding filmmaker and Ivin’s win made headlines across the country. To give the public an opportunity to see the film, it was shown in conjunction with screenings of Holes (a Disney flick starring Shia LaBeouf) in October 2003. It was great exposure for Ivin and the world of short films.
Last Ride marks the feature film debut for Glendyn Ivin and it’s a wonderful, must-see Aussie drama. A scruffy looking, middle-aged father (Weaving) and his 10-year-old son (Russell) are on a road trip in the Australian outback. Their adventure is not one of choice however. The father is on the run from the authorities and is looking for a place to lay low. With no cash to their name, they steal whatever they can from petrol stations and unlocked cars and caravans.
The father and son have an awkward relationship which is difficult to put into words. The film’s website describes it best when it uses the term – “beautiful and harsh”. There are confronting scenes when the father taunts and beats his son. These are contrasted with moments of love – scenes where they each try to make the other feel better about their worries and troubles.
This is the exact opposite of a Transformers-type movie. Instead of satisfying the audience with special effects and explosions, this film does the job through great performances and a well-paced story. It reminded me of Samson & Delilah (another top Australian release this year) given its setting, small cast and underlying message. If you were a fan of Samson, then Last Ride is one to add to your calendar.
Hugo Weaving is terrific (as he always is) but it is youngster Tom Russell who you’ll find yourself talking about when exiting the cinema. Not yet a teenager, I was stunned by the braveness and intensity of Russell’s performance. Even more staggering is the fact that Last Ride is his feature film debut.
It’s been an astonishing year so for Australian cinema and this is another powerful film that has left a lasting impact. With some striking shots of the remote outback, particularly those at Salt Lake, this is a memorable ride.
Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
| Directed by: | Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thurmeier |
| Written by: | Michael Berg, Peter Ackerman, Yoni Brenner |
| Starring: | Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg |
| Released: | July 1, 2009 |
| Grade: | B |
The school holidays are upon us and the big family release for the period is Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs. None of the films in the Ice Age series are targeted at single guys like me but I can recognise quality entertainment when I see it. At the preview screening I attended, kids were lapping it up. This fresh adventure is easy to follow and has a few nice jokes.
It all begins when Sid the sloth (well-voiced by John Leguizamo) discovers three eggs in an underground cavern. He takes care of the eggs himself… until they hatch into baby dinosaurs. Not long after, their mother arrives on the scene and takes Sid and her three newborns off to a hidden world beneath the ice. Manny, Ellie and Diego now must go in search of Sid and help rescue him.
Guiding them on their journey is a brave weasel named Buck (voiced by Englishman Simon Pegg). Buck once came face-to-face with the most fearsome dinosaur of all and lived to tell the tale. He loves danger and loves excitement.
I’ve dropped a few hints already but one of the strongest features of the Ice Age movies are the voices created by the cast. Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo have created four memorable, likeable characters. They’ve not as over-the-top as those from the Madagascar series.
The problem this series faces is that it is starting to look a little tired. I don’t think this screenplay is as sharp and well defined as the original film. Three movies are enough and I hope they don’t have any plans for a fourth. I’d like to see the animation team at 20th Century Fox tackle something new.
The Proposal
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
| Directed by: | Anne Fletcher |
| Written by: | Pete Chiarelli |
| Starring: | Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Betty White, Malin Akerman |
| Released: | June 18, 2009 |
| Grade: | C- |
Ok, so I admit I’m not a huge fan of romantic comedies. I’ve dished out plenty of negative reviews over the years. You could say that I’m not a romantic. You could say I take these light-hearted farces too seriously. You could say that I have bad taste. I don’t care. No matter how hard I try, I cannot like a film like The Proposal. Let me tell you about it anyway…
As a chief editor at a major publishing house, Margaret Tate (Bullock) is the boss from hell. Her arrival at the office each morning sends the whole floor into a spin. Everyone tries to look busy and they all stay out of her way. It’s reminiscent of Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.
Her loyal office assistant is Andrew Paxton (Reynolds). He screens her calls, her gets her coffee every morning and he orchestrates her ever move. Margaret treats him like dirt but Andrew keeps plugging away. Why? He’s hoping that his hard work will pay off in the near future and he’ll get the promotion that he’s long been yearning for.
Out of the blue, Margaret receives notice that her visa has expired and she is to be deported back home to Canada. This isn’t good news. Her job is everything to her and has no intention of giving up both the money and the power.
What’s the answer to her problem? She asks Andrew to marry her as part of sham wedding. She can then become a U.S. citizen and a quicky divorce will immediately follow. Andrew reluctantly goes along with the crazy plan under the condition that he immediately be promoted as an editor.
As you’d expect, the immigration authorities are suspicious and are doing whatever they can to expose their relationship as a fraud. It gets worse when Andrew returns home to Alaska for the weekend, with his new fiancé in toe, and has to try to convince his family that he’s fallen in love with his overbearing boss.
It’s a ludicrous storyline and so many scenes in this film feel fake and phoney. There’s one where Margaret tries to rescue a dog from a swooping eagle. There’s another where Margaret is out in the forest with Andrew’s 90-year-old grandmother (played by Betty White) dancing around an open fire. Does anything in this film have a speck of realism?
Andrew’s ex-girlfriend (Akerman) pops into the story for no reason at all and there’s an under-explored sub-plot involving Andrew’s rocky relationship with his father (Nelson). Worst of all, there’s a schmaltzy, manipulative ending where our two leading characters show their vulnerability. Given everything that preceded the finale, I wasn’t buying it.
From an acting perspective, Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock do nothing to help the lame script. I struggled to see any chemistry whatsoever.
I went into this film with low expectations but even they couldn’t be matched. I know plenty of people who will like it but I consider it one of the year’s worst releases. End of discussion.
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
| Directed by: | Michael Bay |
| Written by: | Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman |
| Starring: | Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Isabel Lucas, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro |
| Released: | June 24, 2009 |
| Grade: | C+ |
I have disliked almost every major blockbuster in the past two months. The list includes The Proposal, Year One, Land Of The Lost, Terminator: Salvation, Angels & Demons, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The only shining lights have been Star Trek, I Love You Man and The Hangover.
I wanted to like this film. I needed something positive to talk about. I wanted confirmation that I’m not a Grinch and there are some good films still out there. Alas, I find myself in a conundrum. Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is a flat, tiring experience. I saw it with a friend and that fact that he agreed has given me some comfort that I’m not insane.I’ve seen some really good action films in my time as a critic. It can be exciting to watch a cool character escape from a perilous situation and defeat a nasty adversary. Unfortunately, I didn’t think any of these characters were even remotely interesting. They made me chuckle a couple of times but that’s about it. When Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox wrap their arms around each other, with a beautiful sunset as the backdrop, I couldn’t care less.
When it comes to making action flicks, there aren’t many directors bigger than Michael Bay. He blasted onto the scene in the mid-1990s with Bad Boys and The Rock (both great films). Unfortunately, he’s become a victim of his own success. I now find his action films too “over the top”. It’s as if he doesn’t care about the story. It’s all about big explosions, helicopter flyovers and slow-motion running sequences. Check out Armageddon, Pearl Harbour and The Island as examples.
This flick is more of the same. I give him credit for creating a spectacle. I actually don’t think I’ve seen a film where so much stuff blown up. It must have cost a fortune. There’s also a tonne of special effects – to the point where I wondered if any of it was real. The problem is that it feels like “all action and no talk”. There’s no chance to develop any plot because we spend so much time watching fast-paced battle sequences. The big finale drags on forever. Two and a half hours is way too long for a film of this calibre.
So what’s it all about? Some evil robots are trying to find the location of a machine which will allow them to destroy our sun and harness the energy. They also need to find a special key. The man with the answers is high school graduate Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf). With the help of the U.S. army, a posse of friendly robots and bunch of new friends, Sam travels to the Great Pyramids in Egypt to save the world.
My favourite film critic is Roger Ebert who writes for the Chicago Sun Times. If you haven’t been turned off by my own thoughts, let me offer a quote from Ebert’s scathing review of the film - “If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.” An apt quote indeed.
The Hangover
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
| Directed by: | Todd Phillips |
| Written by: | Jon Lucas, Scott Moore |
| Starring: | Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong |
| Released: | June 11, 2009 |
| Grade: | A- |
Ever woken up with a nasty headache after an alcohol-fuelled bender? Ever had problems remembering what you got up to the night before? If so, here’s a film for you.
The first 20 minutes of The Hangover is relatively tame. Four guys jump in their car and head to Las Vegas for a buck’s party. They check in at the Caesars Palace, upgrade to a villa suite and head to their rooms to freshen up. The night kicks off with a trip to the hotel roof. They admire the neon-lit skyline and make a toast to Doug (Bartha), the lucky guy who will be married in less than 48 hours time.
Now, comes the fun part. We pan roughly 10 hours into the future. Stu (Helms) wakes up on the floor of their trashed hotel room missing one of his front teeth. Alan (Galifianakis) is stumbling around without his pants. Phil (Cooper) has a splitting headache. The last thing they can remember is going to dinner. What the hell happened? And where is Doug?
I don’t want to say too much more about the plot because The Hangover is a great comedy with plenty of surprises. These guys will soon learn that they had one very eventful evening. Stu realises that pretty quickly when he goes to the bathroom and finds a live tiger looking back at him. How is that possible? Where did the tiger come from and how did it get in the hotel room?
They come across some equally crazy people in their search for the truth and their search for Doug. The wedding is now only a day away and they’ve got to find him in time for the wedding.
The Hangover has been talked up as one of the sleepers of the year and that billing is well justified. The film topped the box-office in the United States last weekend with $45m in its first three days. That’s not bad for a low-brow comedy with no big name actors. Maybe it’s popular because many can relate to the feeling of waking up in a confused, hungover state.
I have to digress for a moment just to point out another one of life’s odd double standards. There’s been a lot of publicity in recent months over football players and their drunken antics. The media frowns upon such behaviour as these people are supposed to be role models for today’s youth. It’s such a contrast from this comedy in which we sit back and have a laugh at the times when we’ve had too much to drink and done silly things. Every argument has a flip side, I guess.
Back to the film itself and yes, I enjoyed it immensely. There’s no character development, hidden messages or anything remotely “emotional”. There’s not supposed to be though. It’s just a madcap ride where you can’t see what’s coming. It finishes on a perfect note with a photo montage to help the audience piece it all together. The idea of a sequel has already been floated and I’m confident that it’ll be in production very soon.
Year One
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
| Directed by: | Harold Ramis |
| Written by: | Harold Ramis, Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg |
| Starring: | Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross, Vinnie Jones, Hank Azaria |
| Released: | June 18, 2009 |
| Grade: | C+ |
Year One might have been funny in the year 10,000 B.C. but certainly not in today’s times. There were a few humorous scenes in the trailer but sadly that’s about all this film has to offer. The writers couldn’t make enough out of the limited storyline. It feels like a spoof flick with its lame, obvious jokes.
Set it some prehistoric era, the movie tells the story of two guys named Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) who leave their small village in search of a better life. They go an epic journey where they encounter an assortment of silly character. Hank Azaria plays Abraham, a man obsessed with circumcision. Oliver Platt plays a priest intent on seducing young boys. David Cross plays Cain, trying to set someone up for the death of his brother, Abel.
The roles don’t require much from stars Jack Black (Tropic Thunder) and Michael Cera (Juno). Black plays yet another crazy, eccentric character. Cera plays yet another nervous, innocent character. I could see they were trying to make this material funny but the hill left by the screenwriters was too high to climb.
Writer-director Harold Ramis has been responsible for some create comedies over his career including Caddyshack, Ghost Busters and Groundhog Day. I’d watch those films on any day of the week but the same can’t be said for Year One. I’ve seen it once and that’s more than enough.