Tuesday 15 May 2018

Four film reviews

I've taken a couple of plane flights recently so I've watched some films (adapted for the airline) on a little screen, occasionally interrupted by seatbelt-related announcements. Here are the benefits of my thoughts on four of them that you might have seen advertised.

1. The Last Jedi. Tedious and poor. I’m not saying that the Star Wars Universe is particularly worthy of respect, but if you are making a Star Wars film then I think you ought to respect what has gone before. Even leaving aside the new apps that have been installed on the Force (inter-planetary 3D film projection and weird telephone functionality, I kid you not), did I really see Princess Leia swimming through space? I am certain that I saw one spaceship fly very slowly over another one so that it could "drop" its bombs (drop! in space!) in the right place. And it turns out that you can destroy big spaceships just by ramming them at lightspeed: why did no-ever do that with any of the various Death Stars that have had to be destroyed in the other films? Why was Supreme Leader Snoke sometimes very clever and sometimes just a moron? Indeed, why did any of the people do any of the things that they did? Why did no one have a consistent character? Why why why why why? I overcame difficulty sleeping the other night by reminding myself of what happened in this film. Now, I am afraid, is the time to withdraw any benefit of the doubt from the Star Wars films. Stop watching them and let the series die.

2. Molly’s Game. Not a bad film, but an entirely unnecessary one. Woman runs illegal gambling game; woman pleads guilty to charge of running illegal gambling den; woman receives non-custodial sentence for charge to which she has pleaded guilty. That's it. All of that is padded out with Aaron Sorkin dialogue, which I could parody but won't bother. Reminds me of black and white films I used to watch for no reason when bored: perfectly well made film, but utterly trivial.

3. Darkest Hour. At best, Churchill’s Greatest Hits set to soaring music. Mostly it is just Gary Oldman doing an impression of Churchill, in between pouting from Lily James and flouncing from Kristin Scott Thomas. It also has a cringingly awful bit in the middle when Churchill boards a tube (that takes forever to go the one stop from Embankment to Westminster) and exchanges Macaulay quotations with the multi-ethnic Cockneys of 1940s London. There are also lots of posh people who can't say their Rs. Also a completely unnecessary film, and a far less imaginative idea for a Churchill film than, say, Churchill (the one about his doubts over D-Day and increasing irrelevance compared to Eisenhower). Again, there is nothing actually wrong with the film (except for the bit on the tube).

4. Downsizing. Pick of the bunch by a long way. This is a surprisingly ambitious film and well worth a watch. The trailer suggests that it is a satirical comedy about social class in America starring Matt Damon. That's certainly part of it. But it's a lot more than that. It's not laugh-out loud funny, on the whole, and it's a bit like two films squashed into one (in the same way that Brideshead is a bit like more than at least two books squashed together), but it's got a lot going for it. See it if you think you might be interested in any of these: thoughts on Tesla-style saving the world by having cool stuff; an unambiguously positive representation of an evangelical Christian; no representation without taxation; how to tell if you are Noah, or just a regular guy; very small people talking through megaphones to normal size people.

2 comments:

  1. I generally agree, but I think you are too hard on the Churchill film. Oldman's portrayal of him is superb. The scene on the tube is indeed awful though.
    Downsizing is well worth watching: as you say, two films for the price of one and more evidence if it were needed that Americans are increasingly different from europeans ( and not just in their size).

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    1. Re: that bit on the tube. I thought as I saw it that they only knew the quotation because it had been in Doctor Who (even less appositely) not that long ago.

      Downsizing has a funny view of Europe, but at least it has a view of Europe, and not just as the punchline to a joke. And for all that it has a major Asian character, it's not about Asia either.

      I re-watched The Princess Bride recently too, and one thing that struck me this time, along with how good it still is, was the sheer abundance of entirely unnecessary Anglophilia in its casting and setting. I mean, why is Mel Smith in it? It's as if Harry Potter were re-written by a Jewish American comedian. Which is a film I'd like to see ...

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