Film Review: Serenity

"Say Fate Gave You The Choice: You Can Get The Lady, Or You Could Catch That Tuna That's In Your Head. Which One Would You Choose..?"

On the one hand, Serenity is thankfully not an attempt to reboot the Firefly live-action spin-off of the same name from 2005, and instead is a movie which this week manages to pull off the contemporary trend of being released both on the big and small screens in a supposed attempt in order to gather an excessive amount of viewers on its' opening weekend. Backed by the behemoth that is Sky Movies, whose previous endeavors, including the likes of Anon and Final Score, haven't exactly set the critical underworld alike, Serenity is the latest from Peaky Blinders creator and Locke director, Steven Knight, who returns to the big screen with an absolutely bonkers and unbelievably stupid neo-noir thriller which has already been tipped as the front-runner heading into the next Razzies ceremony. Led by the usually respectable figure of Matthew McConaughey, (Interstellar) Knight's movie sees the Oscar winning American as Baker Dill, an alcohol ridden, musky small-time fisherman whose quiet life on the island of Plymouth is soon interrupted by the re-emergence of ex-wife, Karen, played in equally over-the-top form by Anne Hathaway, who reunites with McConaughey after their work together on the masterful Interstellar. 

With an opening camera swoop which feels like a sub-90's porno flick as we are swiftly introduced to the glowing sands and seas of the film's idyllic locale, the tone of the movie is laid faced down almost immediately, with gobsmackingly awful dialogue and monologues about life-chasing tuna one of the many highlights of a piece which you can't help but stare at in complete shock as you try and piece together how on earth such a raspberry pudding of a movie came to be. With a central narrative which blends together fantastical romance with some sort of supernatural mystery, the opening hour is stuffed with unintentional hilarity as we become subject to some of the most awful, ham-fisted acting performances I have seen for a very long time, typified by McConaughey himself who seems to have taken the material as serious as his work on Dallas Buyers Club and just ends up making a complete and utter turkey of himself as he drunkenly stumbles and screams his way through a performance which gives The Room's Tommy Wiseau a run for his money. Awful editing and effects aside, the real talking point of the movie is undoubtedly the final thirty minutes of the piece in which Knight goes full on M. Night Shyamalan with an already infamous and thunderously stupid jack-in-the-box twist, and whilst it's obvious to class Serenity as a work of complete and utter nonsense, I cannot shy away from the fact that it made me laugh more times than most American comedies, and whilst such comedy is clearly unintentional and stems from Knight's soon to be sectioned and ludicrous mind, the fact that certain points were actually quite enjoyable means that Serenity isn't the worst film I've ever sat through, but it may indeed just be the silliest. So bad, it's almost good. 

Overall Score: 4/10

Film Review: Ocean's 8

"We Will Not Be The Prime Suspects..."

With Steven Soderbergh's ice-cool Oceans Eleven back at the start of the twentieth a contemporary remake of the 1960 Rat Pack-led movie of the same name which managed to not only work exceptionally well to both critics and audiences alike, but managed to create a further two big-screen releases with its' staggeringly star-studded cast, the release of Ocean's 8 follows the blueprint of 2016's Ghostbusters by being a franchise spin-off/remake which modifies the primary gender of the film's preceding it from predominantly male to female. With the notion of gender-modification on-screen something of which I'm entirely supportive of, with the film industry still way behind in terms of equal pay and equal opportunities even in a post-Weinstein cinematic era, the real question remains whether the final product is good enough to warrant a continuation of the franchise in the first place, and with a stellar, starry cast, an abundance of flashy style and some interesting plot developments, Ocean's 8 is an enjoyable caper-based romp, one which although sacrifices deep characterisation in favour of simply getting on with the job at hand, is a more than capable treading of old ground which harmlessly passes the time but still does not hit the gold standard of the original remake which still remains the best in the franchise thus far.

Directed by Gary Ross of The Hunger Games fame, Ocean's 8 follows Sandra Bullock's (Gravity) Debbie Ocean, the freshly released ex-con whose family tree burdens her with a pre-conception of her immediate return to crime as soon as she gets back on her feet in the outside world. Surprise, surprise therefore that with the help of a merry band of fellow criminals including Cate Blanchett's (Thor: Ragnarok) leather jacket wearing Lou and Sarah Paulson's (The Post) suburban housewife turned profiteer, Tammy, Ocean immediately plans to steal a staggeringly expensive necklace from Anne Hathaway's (Interstellar) air-headed Daphne Kluger during the annual star-studded Met Gala. With a silly, plot-hole ridden screenplay, one which disregards any meaningful character backstory whatsoever and one which leans too heavily on a reliance that the audience will agree to leave their brain at the door, Ocean's 8 is the cinematic equivalent of an episode of Hustle, a sometimes sharp, quip laden flash-a-thon which is bolstered by a fundamentally appealing cast who simply are there to get the job done and have fun whilst doing it, and whether or not you can bypass the sheer stupidity of the central heist is the real measure of how you may or may not enjoy the film, but for a harmless slice of popcorn entertainment, Ocean's 8 is far from the worst entry in the franchise and passed the time rather solidly. 

Overall Score: 6/10