This Is The End (2013, Dirs. Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, USA) (Cert: 15/R) **

 

 

 

Starring: Jay Baruchel, Seth Rogen, James Franco

 

Comedian and actor Jay Baruchel arrives in Los Angeles to hang out with his friend and collaborator, Seth Rogen. Following an afternoon of playing video games and getting stoned, they go over to James Franco’s house for a wild star-studded party. The party comes to a premature end when a series of natural disasters occur, signalling the possible end of days. Holed up in James Franco’s well-structured mansion, a group of surviving comedians brave the end of days.

 

An apocalyptic comedy brought to you by the group who made Pineapple Express (2008) and Superbad (2007), This Is The End plays with meta-elements using modern actors in American comedy to do it (although the inclusion of Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and Michael Cera, all Canadians, stretches the notion of ‘American comedy’) and it boasts a decent cast and an intriguing premise, but the laughs never really come. The comedic style is near-the-knuckle and is loaded with pop-culture references, but the film’s best moments are when it lampoons the style of comedy that it admittedly doesn’t take too seriously. For all that the film relies somewhat on star power to provoke the humour, the cameos feel often forced or unsatisfying (Emma Watson’s appearance really could’ve been expanded, especially since she is the film’s most significant female role, as brief as it is) but the film just manages to move at a pace that means you never fully lose patience with it. Fans of these comedians and their style will enjoy this, but if you’re not a fan, it just feels rather hollow and not very amusing.

Black Rock (2012, Dir. Katie Astleton, USA) (Cert: 15/R) ***

 

Starring: Katie Astleton, Lake Bell, Kate Bosworth

 

Lou (Bell) and Sarah (Bosworth) decide to go on a trip to an island off of the coast, joined by Abbie (Astleton) (a friend of Sarah’s but who turned against Lou for sleeping with her boyfriend). As the three start to bond, they come across three men (Will Bouvier/Jay Paulson/Anslem Richardson) hunting on the island. That night, a violent event turns the island into an isolated hell.

 

Directed by star Kate Astleton, Black Rock has a clear influence from John Boorman’s classic thriller, Deliverance (1972) in the idea of a group of friends going to an isolated location and being set upon in a violent manner. The film deals with violence fairly well, and at least when the initial conflict sets in, it’s surprisingly bleak and nasty. The film mostly encounters trouble with how to portray the three female protagonists, who, in the preamble to the main plot, seem shallow and lacking in sympathetic personas, which does cause trouble when wanting to care about their plight. The film is, fall of its subdued elements and short running time, well executed with some fine performances and is stronger than what an audience might anticipate, but it is definitely something of an acquired taste.  

Spike Island (2012, Dir. Mat Whitecross, UK) (Cert: 15/TBC) ***

 

 

Starring: Elliot Tittensor, Emilia Clarke, Nico Mirallegro

 

School friends Tits (Tittensor), Dodge (Mirallegro), Zippy (Jordan Murphy), Little Gaz (Adam Long) and Penfold (Oliver Heald) are members of local band Shadow Caster in Manchester, just as the local Madchester scene is exploding in 1990. Their heroes, The Stone Roses are headlining a concert at Spike Island in Cheshire, which is promising to be the defining band in the Stone Roses’ career and Shadow Caster try and find a way to get into the gig and pass on their demo tape.

 

Coming hot off of the heels of Shane Meadows’ Stone Roses documentary, The Stone Roses: Made Of Stone (2013), Spike Island is another love letter to the critically acclaimed Madchester band. Whilst the film does portray certain elements of the period and the music lovingly and beautifully captures the ambience of a young rock band rehearsing and writing away, the film’s sentimentality comes at the expense of characterisations. The main characters of Tits and Dodge only seem partially observed and you never get a true sense of them being fully rounded, whilst their band mates seem even more sketichily realised (though there are some promising scenes of Penfold, a dancer in the mould of Bez from Happy Mondays having a difficult relationship with his battle traumatised father). The film captures the spirit of youth brilliantly and is often fun and entertaining, but it just needs protagonists that are better developed and, as a result, more sympathetic.

Snitch (2013, Dir. Ric Roman Waugh, USA/UAE) (Cert: 12a/PG-13) ***

 

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon

 

Jason Collins (Rafi Gavron) reluctantly agrees to accept a package from a friend (James Allen McCune) that contains drugs. Upon delivery, Jason is arrested and is facing a minimum mandatory sentence of ten years, unless he reveals the identity of other associates in the drugs trade, which could lower his sentence. However, Jason doesn’t know of any other dealers or distributors so his father, John Matthews (Johnson) decides to build connections in the underworld in order to help secure his son’s release.

 

A dramatic thriller about the drugs trade, Snitch does a few things righ, but is largely unremarkable. There are some problems in the film, evidenced by the rather stereotypical portrayal of criminals (virtually all African-American or Latino gangbangers) that hardly pulls the film in a positive direction, not to mention having Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson play a vulnerable protagonist is a bit of a stretch. However, Johnson does pull off a fairly good performance, which may surprise many people. The film’s best moments are when we get to deal with the family relationship that Johnson’s lead, John Matthews has, and how such an original dynamic plays on his character, though the action sequences are still capable of exciting. There are some rather sizable flaws (the premise even seems a little hard to swallow from a legal standpoint), but Snitch is enjoyable all the same.

Despicable Me 2 (3D) (2013, Dirs. Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, USA) (Cert: U/PG) ***

 

Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt

 

Now a devoted father, former super-villain Gru (Carell) is tracked down by a secret agency known as the Anti-Villain League when a UFO is spotted and Gru suspects a disappeared super-villain known as El Macho. Teaming up with Anti-Villain League agent, Lucy Wilde (Wiig), Gru tries to solve the mystery whilst also caring for his three little girls (Miranda Cosgrove, Elsie Fisher, Dana Geier) and his countless hoardes of mischievous minions get into all kinds of trouble.

 

When it was released in 2010, Despicable Me, the first feature film by Illumination Entertainment proved very popular. A feat that Illumination fell short of with subsequent films, Hop (2011) and The Lorax (2012). Now returning back to the Despicable Me franchise, it appears that whilst Illumination has trouble with some characters outside those from their debut film, at least as far as the Despicable Me series goes, they’re doing fine. As far as being a sequel goes, Despicable Me 2 isn’t really an improvement on the last film (a film which you really need to see to get a grasp of this film’s plot). The humour is on roughly the same level, but this film does lack some of the heart and sweetness of the first film, a flaw in the writing rather than the performances. Most of the familiar big names return to the series (Steve Carell, Miranda Cosgrove and Russell Brand, although with much less screentime in this film) and are now joined by some new big name talent (Benjamin Bratt, Steve Coogan, Kristen Wiig) and most of the performances are pitched at their most over-the-top, but not so far as to become an irritation, although often the film is stolen completely by the lovable minions. Despicable Me 2 suffers from the same pandering towards the 3D market that the first film did (things are often dangled at camera in a way to completely sell the 3D illusion) and it’s extremely predictable but whilst the film isn’t for the most part uproariously funny, it is at least entertaining and just generally good fun.

World War Z (2013, Dir. Marc Forster, USA/Malta) (Cert: 15/PG-13) ***

 

Starring: Brad Pitt, Miereille Enos, Daniella Kertesz

 

A quiet day with the family is disrupted for Gerry Lane (Pitt) when news breaks out about some sort of disaster, which involves diseased people feeding on victims and passing on a pathogen, resulting in an epidemic. Eventually finding shelter off the coast in an airplane carrier, Gerry learns that his family’s stay on board (and most likely their survival) is dependent on Gerry’s work in the United Nations, travelling the world to find a way to stop the epidemic.

 

An adaptation of the 2006 novel by Max Brooks (son of comedian Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft), World War Z represents zombie horror at its most monumental scale. Many other zombie films before had dealt with the notion of a zombie epidemic, but given the low budgets that usually accompany zombie films (and horror films in general), a globe-trotting big-budget adventure such as this has been rare, if not unheard of. As with most modern zombie films, World War Z seems to be most heavily influenced by the work of George A. Romero (and his subgenre-defining, Living Dead series) as well as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002), although World War Z doesn’t match the cynicism or astute political  and social commentary of those films. Thankfully, Brad Pitt is a strong enough actor and screen presence to cope with, given that we’re stuck with him through the vast majority of the run-time and the story is captivating. The main problem simply is that it isn’t the innovation that might be expected given that it paints from a wider available canvas than the low-budget likes of Romero or Lucio Fulci and the film lacks any real subtext. It’s enthralling and, at times, exciting, but it’s not as deep or as expansive as it first appears.

Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, The Wrath Of God) (1972, Dir. Werner Herzog, West Germany) (Cert: PG/Unrated) ****

 

Starring: Klaus Kinski, Del Negro, Peter Berling.

 

In the late-16^th century Spanish conquistadors travelled across South America in order to claim the land for their empire. One such group ends up being divided and when a team rises up into mutiny against the Spanish crown, the man behind the mutiny, Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) leads them on towards the mythical El Dorado.

 

After having made a small name for himself producing avant-garde and documentary films, German filmmaker Werner Herzog scored his first of many international hits with this downbeat historical adventure epic. The film also marks the first of five collaborations with the difficult star, Klaus Kinski. Kinski had had a prolific career with a few notable film credits (namely Doctor Zhivago (1966) and A Few Dollars More (1965)) but this is a collaboration which would ensure Kinski’s notability and notoriety. Although a fictional historical film, Aguirre is almost documentary-like in its style. Narration provides diary dates and personal feelings, the rafts are rickety (and scenes of them tearing through, and almost being destroyed by, Amazonian rapids are 100% genuine) and the similarities between Kinski and his character Aguirre (both of them are borderline maniacal sociopaths, Kinski a genuine case) gives the film a realistic immediacy. A testament to the talents of Herzog and Kinski (as well as the film’s cinematographers and the music of Popol Vuh) Aguirre is one of those titles that everyone should see at least once.