Review No.180: Magic Mike

Plot: Steven Soderbergh's film concentrates on Channing Tatum's Mike Lane who works on building sites by day but at night is a regular turn at the XQuisite nightclub under the name Magic Mike. Mike has built up a relationship with the club's owner Dallas, played by Matthew McConaughey, and gets an extra cut of the profits by helping his boss do the books. Mike is saving his money so he can one day run his own furniture-making business but due to his bad credit the banks won't give him a loan so he has to work harder to achieve his goals. At the construction site Mike meets 19 year old Adam and later introduces him to the stripping world as Adam is thrust onto the stage after veteran stripper Tarzan is too inebriated to perform. Through his relationship with Adam, Mike also meets his sister Brooke who is worried about her brother and asks for Mike's help however it seems she doesn't want a relationship with him because of what he does. As the film goes on we see Dallas attempt to expand the act, Adam getting into his new life and Mike trying to escape the stripping world however one incident has an impact on all three.

Positives: After Contagion and Haywire, Soderbergh continues his exploitation films with this look at the male stripping industry pitching it halfway between sleazy and glamorous. Soderbergh's visuals making the stripping scenes come alive, which I know won't appeal to most people, which really explains why the women can't get enough of these guys. Channing Tatum is actually pretty decent here excelling at playing the everyman and really making us empathise with Mike who has a dream but is constantly put down by the man. He has a believable chemistry with Cody Horn, who plays Brooke, and by the end of the film you are really willing them to get together. The real stand-out in Magic Mike is Matthew McConaughey who presents Dallas both as a showman and a businessman getting quite ruthless when he realises how much Adam and Mike may have jeopardised his business. McConaughey's performance is so good that I could honestly see him being nominated as Best Supporting Actor at next year's Oscars as Dallas is the sort of character that could well appeal to the academy.

Negatives: I have to say I don't think English actor Alex Pettyfer really had the wide-eyed innocence needed to play the part of Adam successfully and by the end he'd just come off as brattish. I also felt Olivia Munn wasn't given much to do as Mike's occasional sex buddy Joanna.

Verdict: Soderbergh suceeds in directing another well-shot and engaging exploitation film with two great performances from McConaughey and Tatum so for those reasons I will give Magic Mike 8/10

Review No.60: Haywire

Basing a film around somebody who has never acted before is a tricky business even when that person, in this Gina Carano, has been surrounded by lights and camera before. Carano is best known as a fighter in the mixed martial arts field but was also a former American Gladiator and in Steven Soderbergh's Haywire she makes her debut as government contractor Mallory Kane. Haywire's story is a simple one as Mallory is sent to Barcelona to rescue an Asian journalist before being convinced by her boss/former lover Kenneth, played by Ewan McGregor, to take up another assignment posing as Michael Fassbender's wife. It is only when on this assignment that she realises she has been set-up and Fassbender is out to kill her thankfully she realises this in the nick of time and is able to over-power him. Returning to the States she is confronted by another old colleague, played by Chaning Tatum, before commandeering the car of a customer at the diner she was in. After telling him her story she ends up at her father's house where she demands the truth from Kenneth which is a conspiracy that also involves Michael Douglas' government agent and his contact played by Antonio Banderas.

It's fair to say the best parts of Haywire are when Carano is kicking ass or plotting her next move however Soderbergh seems set to make her act as much as possible. The two best scenes in Haywire, in my opinion, are when Mallory is tussling with Fassbender in an Irish hotel or when he is wrestling with McGregor on a Mexican beach. For me the problem here is that Soderbergh has over-complicated the plot meaning that we must learn of half of a dozen characters in the first fifteen minutes of the film and I really struggled to work out who was on who's side. It seemed that a variety of reliable actors such as McGregor, Fassbender, Banderas and Douglas had been drafted in to act alongside the amateur however I feel the majority of them are wasted in underwritten role. Carano herself isn't an awful actress just a little cold so while I understood her need for revenge she never really made me care if she lived or died. What should've happened with Haywire is a lot more set piece, such a when Mallory is trying to evade the Irish police, and a lot less of her hanging around waiting for stuff to happen. This being a Soderbergh film at least everything is styled to perfection there's some great cinematography, the score suits the mood perfectly and each new location is welcomed in so at least we know where we are even if we're not quite sure what's going on. I think Carano was often utilised in the right way but I have to say I'd expected more from the film seeing as who was involved and at the end of the day Haywire seemed to me to be a film that should've been simple but a lot more complicated by an over-abundance of character and too many cooks spoiling the broth.

Verdict: Slick and stylish in places with some great set-pieces it's a shame that Soderbergh peppered his film with far too many different characters so for that reason I can only award this 6/10

Review No.44: 21 Jump Street

Off to the Stafford Apollo again for another cheap Tuesday screening which was completely empty apart from myself and my two friends. This was good in a way as we were able to laugh like idiots at 21 Jump Street without being judged by any other members of the general public. The film is a recreation of a 1980s US TV show, which is only really known on these shores for bringing Johnny Depp into prominence, and sees two youthful-looking cops going undercover at a high school to infiltrate various crimes. In the case of the film it is Jonah Hill's Schmidt and Channing Tatum's Jenko who are former high school foes turned police academy friends and finally bicycle cop partners. After failing to arrest a gang of drug dealing bikers the pair are placed in the scheme run by Ice Cube's angry black Captain Dickson and assigned to a high school in which a dangerous drug is being dealt and manufactured. After swapping identities the reserved Schmidt is forced to join the drama society where he falls for the quirky Molly while the dumb Jenko is forced into AP Chemistry. It isn't soon before high school rules are swapped and Schmidt falls in with the cool gang while Jenko befriends his fellow science nerds learning that the kids he once bullied are actually quite cool. The drugs plot finally comes to a head during prom night with the final sequence featuring a surprise cameo and the usual predictable outcomes of the main protagonists using the new skills they have acquired during their time at the school.

As I said throughout the film myself and my friends were laughing prefusely and that's mainly due to the comic timing displayed by both Hill and more surprisingly Tatum. In my last review I blasted Tatum for not really having any skill but here he demonstrates that he's best when playing the straight guy in a comedy double act with the more reliable Hill getting the bulk of the joke lines. A lot of the humour is delivered in a knowing way especially when Ice Cube is pointing out the stereotypes on display and the rehashing of old plotlines. There are also some broadly comic sequences in particular a car chase which features a lot of different cars being stolen and Jonah Hill clad in a Peter Pan outfit. There are also some excellent supporting characters including Bridesmaids' Ellie Kemper as the chemistry teacher who is attracted to Jenko and the OTT drama teacher played by Chris Parnell best known to 30 Rock fans as Dr Spaceman. However behind the laughs there is also a sweetness to 21 Jump Street thanks to the great chemistry between Hill and Tatum and it is their central relationship which is key to the film in fact I would go as far as to say that this was a bromanitc comedy. The relationship between Schmidt and Molly is also very well done and we can see for the first time that this loser might have a shot with a girl while Jenko's relationship with the science nerds is also sweet-natured especially his final speech to class. My only problem was the final third when the plot had to be resolved and the revelation of who the supplier was really didn't surprise anyone but even during this time there were enough laughs to keep you distracted from the dodgy plotting. I have to say this is a film that I liked a lot more than I thought I would with Hill redeeming himself after the woeful The Sitter and Tatum demonstrating where his acting skill actually lies.

Verdict: Despite an unsatisfying conclusion this is a very funny film that is made all the more better thanks to great chemistry between its two brilliant leads 7.5/10

Review No.43: The Vow

Sometimes I do wonder what I've put myself in for watching some of the films on this list and a case in point is The Vow. Apparently based on real-life events it evokes memories of previous long-winded romantic dramas The Notebook and Dear John so it's not surprising that the former's female lead Rachel McAdams stars alongside the latter's male lead Channing Tatum in this film. They play respectively as Paige and Leo a horribly Bohemian New York couple who get into a car crash on a snowy night and when she wakes up she has no recollection of him. Instead she still thinks she lives the good life on the posh side of her town with her horribly controlling father Sam Neill and her Stepford Wife of a mother Jessica Lange she also believes she engaged to the sleazy Scott Speedman. It is then up to Leo to make Paige fall in love with him all over again and remember how she dropped out of law school to concentrate on being a sculptor and I'm sure some of the works that Paige produces throughout this film are an insult to those who actually do this thing professionally. Leo also has a 'believable' job as he owns a recording studio apparently because he loves the sound of an album that has been recorded the right way and he gives a speech to this effect during the film. The film then essentially sees Paige trapped between the stifling life with the people she remembers or a carefree existence with a husband she doesn't know.

To be honest if I was her I just would've run away as I would want to forget all of the awful people in this film. Firstly there are the kooky, quirky, city folks who all live in some sort of commune where they break into art galleries to get married and hang out at trendy cafes which I'm sure don't exist in the real world. They also all have very well paid jobs despite not being particularly talented or committed to what they want to do. Paige's family on the other hand are an odd bunch who are capitalising on the fact that she has had a head injury to convince her to come back to the home that she remembers. Sam Neil has the unenviable task of playing a complete slimeball who blackmails his way through life and has even had an affair with his daughter's friend a fact she can't remember and obviously one he's not going to remind her of. The only particularly likeable character in this is Leo however Channing Tatum is such a lousy actor that he seemingly only got the part to get his top off as many times as humanly possible and appeal to a certain market of hormonal teenage girls. McAdams meanwhile seems to be taking a step back in her career as I feel that she has progressed to a point where she didn't have to star in drivel like this but perhaps she needed the cash. The Vow looks pretty enough but that's where it ends and the only people involved who got a happy ending seem to be the couple who this film was based on who now have two children, so good for them but did they really have to make a film about them? After watching this I'm sure you'll want to suffer a similar injury to Paige and forget all about this terrible movie.

Verdict: Not as bad as Jack and Jill but still terrible The Vow gets a very generous 2.5/10