Review No.140: African Cats

Anyone who reads my TV writings knows that my Achilles' Heel is the nature documentary as on the whole I find them rather tiresome though I do have a soft spot for Sir David Attenborough. As I've had to gear myself up to watch various films that I wouldn't otherwise bother with throughout this blog I thought it was a better time than ever to watch Disney's Kenya-set documentary African Cats. From the start of the film you get the idea that Disney are trying to emulate March of the Penguins from the close-up photography down to the choice of  a wise black actor to narrate the affair with Samuel L Jackson taking Morgan Freeman's chair in the announcing booth. As the title would suggest the film looks at African cats in particular a pack of lionesses on one side of the river and a cheetah who unusually has to look after five cubs. The two separate plot strands deal with how mothers care for their children in the wild with the lionesses looking after their young, in particular we see the relationship between mother and daughter Layla and Mara, as well as how they are watched over by the kindly but threatening Fang. However the pride from the North arrive chasing Fang away and extraditing his cub Mara, who had been living with her aunt since her mother's death, with the lionesses eventually accepting these new men into their pride. On the other side we see Sita the Cheetah teach her cubs how to survive on their own by both running away from predators and hunting for their own food. As time goes on we see the cheetah cubs grow up and attempt to fend for themselves while Mara tries to cope on her own away from the pride.

It's clear when watching African Cats that it's geared towards a family friendly audience though there are scenes in which I feel young children would get quite upset, like how I did when Simba's father died in The Lion King. I do think my ten year old self may have got more out of it but at the same time I felt that the film had a repetitive nature that kids may find quite dull. What I can't argue with is that directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey really had an eye for detail and the camera team did wonders with their sometimes almost too close for comfort shots, I'm thinking in particular of the scenes in which Fang tries to scare off some crocodiles. As I said before I feel that Disney really wanted this to be as successful as March of the Penguins however it's not turned out that way at all and I possibly wouldn't have heard about it unless I was watching all the films released this year. When it comes to vocal resonance I'm afraid that Samuel L Jackson isn't quite up there with Morgan Freeman however he does still add some authority to the film almost seeming like he wants to challenge the two lions for the King of the Jungle title. What I wasn't a fan of was the script which in away was almost disconnected from what was happening on screen it was almost as if the production team got together and realised they had some great footage but nothing realy to say about it so then went something that was overly poetic and at times utterly propesterous. At the end of the day African Cats does what it says on the tin, it's a documentary about lions and cheetahs in Kenya, and while it may appeal to children I didn't find much to sink my teeth into other than the wonderful wildlife photography.

Verdict: I think this is definitely one for the kids as I personally found African Cats rather dull at times although you still have to give it up for some wonderful footage of the African plains so for that reason it gets a 5.5/10

Review No.78: Avengers Assemble

So it's time to review the film that everybody had seen apart from myself and the friend who accompanied to an early afternoon screening of Avengers Assemble. That's at least what I thought however the screen wasn't as empty as I thought it would be as there was a smattering of patrons already sitting down when we got there though I got the impression that many of them had already seen this at least once. I really don't know how much plot detail I should go into here as I feel the majority of readers will at least have a small knowledge of what the film is about namely the assembly of all the of the Marvel superheroes who have appeared in their own films over the past couple of years. So we have Captain America, Thor and Iron Man combining with The Hulk who is now played by Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson plays Black Widow who she has previously portrayed in the Iron Man franchise and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye who had a brief cameo in the Thor movie. The plot itself revolves around Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury, the link between all of these Marvel movies, who has to gather together these various heroes after Thor's step-brother Loki steals the Tesseract in order to open up some sort of space portal to get an alien race known as the Chitauri to invade. The essential struccture of The Avengers is collecting all the various characters, get them together, getting them to argue, separate them, reunite them and then get them to save New York by vanquishing all the aliens. Along the way everybody gets their time to shine and do their party piece whether it be Thor with his hammer, Captain America with his shield, The Hulk generally destroying things or Iron Man being generally witty they get their five minutes of fame. If you haven't seen it don't read the rest of this paragraph but essentially The Avengers prevent another 9/11 from happening only this time they fend off aliens rather than terrorists afterwards we are given a collection of news footage criticising The Avengers' tactics which I found very reminiscent of Team America. There was also a final scene in which Loki's failed atempts are punished by the head of the Chitauri which essentially set up either a sequel to this film or to Thor or perhaps both.

People who know me will know that I'm not a big fan of Hollywood action films however I did enjoy both Thor and Captain America for different reasons while I also thought the first Iron Man film was fantastic. As I previously mentioned all of the superhero get to do the thing they're best known for and I would best surmise Avengers Assemble as sort of being a Greatest Hits Mixtape which should've had the tagline - you liked what they did before, then see them all do it at the same time. This is a benefit in some cases as I don't think there was much more that could be done with the character of Captain America given Chris Evans' limited range while Thor made me giggle more than anything else as did Hemsworth's lines here though saying that Hiddleston's egocentric Loki provided a good villain who, like any good baddie, was set on world domination. I am looking forward to the third Iron Man film if only to see more of the bickering between Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. which again was a highlight of this film however the latter's quick-talking was a bonus in this film and did provide some of the stand-out moments of the script. I would've liked to have seen more of Mark Ruffalo's Hulk as most of the plot surrounding him seemed to be waiting until he turned green and started smashing everything around him. I am aware that there have been two previous Hulk films but I would've like to have seen another one with the excellent Ruffalo in the lead role as his brief appearances as Bruce Banner were very well done. Renner and Johansson were also ill-served by their screen time which hinted at a past relationship between the two and I do hope that he at least does get his own prequel film to flesh out the character before a second Avengers film. There is a lot of wit in the script and when I have heard friends discuss the film it is the one-liners that they best remember which again I quite enjoyed and found myself laughing several times throughout. There was though a fair bit of exposition throughout with most of it being delivered by Jackson as he walked and talked with Robin from How I Met your Mother explaining various plot points to her. The final battle scene is about 45 minutes long but is extremely well-produced and visually stunning allowing each Avenger to demonstrate why they've been recruited in the first place however towards the end I did feel this battle had become slightly repetitive. It did take me a while to decide what I actually thought of Avengers Assemble however it was at the end of the day a Greatest Hits, or Greatest Smashes in the case of The Hulk, highlight reel where everybody got to do what they're known for which was both the best and worst thing about the film as it was entertaining but left little room for character development.

Verdict: A Greatest Hits Mixtape where everybody gets their chance to shine but characters don't really develop though overall it was fairly entertaining and kept my interest throughout so therefore I will award it a 7.5/10

Review No.74: Fury

So I seem to be the only person who hasn't seen The Avengers yet, but fear not dear readers I will endeavour to do so next week, however I do know that Samuel L Jackson plays the character of Nick Fury in the film which is odd as here he stars in a film called Fury however it has nothing to do with the comic book franchise. I would even go as far as to say that the film is trying to cash in on Jackson's character by changing the name for its UK release from The Samaritan to Fury. Anyway instead of playing a mysterious eye-patched dude, Jackson pays Foley a former conman who had been jailed after killing his former partner in crime. The partner's son Ethan tracks Foley down trying to convince him to participate in one last con however when he turns him down the once charming Ethan turns nasty sending a hooker named Iris to tempt it over to the dark side. However Foley ends up as Iris' protector and the two start a sexual relationship but Ethan ruins it with a revelation about her true identity which forces Foley back into his life of crime. The con they are about to pull is 'The Samaritan' in which a husband has to pay to save his junkie wife from the crime lord she owes money to, in this case Tom Wilkinson's bonkers wine obseswed Englishman, before stealing his money. Though Ethan has Foley on board things don't really go to plan especially when Iris throws a spanner in the works towards of the film.

Samuel L Jackson begins Fury by delivering an opening montage as he leaves prison making me believe that this was some sort of Shawshank Redemption tale with Jackson in the Morgan Freeman role, especially since former Shawshank resident Gil Bellows pops up here as a bartender, however it soon becomes a revenge thriller. The final third of the film then focuses in on the con so it becomes more like an Ocean's 11 noir with everybody wearing slick suits and talking about plotting the con to the final detail before another shift in tone linking back to the start of the film. For me I felt Jackson was phoning his performance in and there was nothing special about it to the extent where I almost felt like Sam was doing a favour for director David Weaver. Thankfully there are some decent supporting actors with the British actress Ruth Negga impressing as Iris while Wilkinson hams it up to a major degree in the scenes in which he features as Xavier. There's no denying that this was a solid film with a decent idea however Weaver's tonal shifts coupled with Jackson's sub-par performance meant that at the end of the day Fury felt completely unremarkable.

Verdict: A couple of decent performances in a film that doesn't outstay its welcome doesn't make it any more remarkable so I'm going to give it the same score as Transit with 5.5/10

Review No.1: Mother and Child

So here we are the first review of a film released in the UK in 2012. And it is one that originally appeared in the US in 2009. Mother and Child is directed by Rodrigo Garcia, whose other film Albert Nobbs is being reviewed very soon, but more importantly produced by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu director of Babel and 21 Grams. Like those films Mother and Child features various stories that link together as the story goes on with all three stories featuring themes of motherhood. Annette Bening stars as Karen a woman who gave up her baby when she was a teenager with this child now being a thirty-something lawyer named Elizabeth played by Naomi Watts. We follow the story of both of these women who have been affected by the adoption with Karen being very cold towards most people and Elizabeth being very matter-of-fact and throwing herself into her work as a lawyer. The third story follows Kerry Washington's Lucy trying to adopt a child with mixed results and as you would expect this story interlinks with the others before the film's end.

Mother and Child definitely has its moments and most of that comes from the performances, Watts especially shines in a role which is quite hard to sympathise with but she is able to convey a woman who has gone through emotional hardships and as a result of this has become cold. Annette Bening is also great although Karen is a character that is hard work she eventually softens when she forms a relationship with her co-worker played by Jimmy Smits. And I would be amiss if I didn't mention Samuel L Jackson as Elizabeth's worthy boss he puts in a turn that is very understated something you don't see from Jackson very often. Mother and Child's main problem is that it outstays its welcome and everything seemed to be drawn out so that the final scene would have more significance but for me I felt that there was at least some parts that could've been cut and some characters who weren't afforded much time to develop. Overall Mother and Child is a solid drama with some strong performances but there's nothing that marks this film out than more than that.

Verdict: For a solid drama a solid 5.5 out of 10 should do the trick.