Film Review: Fighting with My Family

"Good Morning, Wrestling Nerds. This Is Where We See Whether Or Not You Get To Go On The WWE..."

With an absolute absence of knowledge pertaining to anything slightly resembling the world of wrestling, with my own views regarding the slightly absurd money making machine something of which I might just keep restrained for this particular review, it's fair to say that Fighting With My Family is the type of rags-to-riches true story which from an outsiders point of view, would have to spoon feed me the rise of Saraya "Paige" Bevis, the Norwich born, heavy metal loving hard-ass who became the youngest wrestling champion ever at the age of twenty one. Written and directed by the immediately recognisable figure of Stephen Merchant (The Office, Logan) and backed financially by WWE Studios, whos previous endeavours include erm, The Scorpion King and Leprechaun: Origins to name a few, Fighting With My Family takes the cliched, formulaic approach to bringing the story of Paige to the big screen, and whilst such genre conventions force the underlying narrative to be more than overly predictable, even for someone without knowing the wrestling back story heading in, Merchant's movie succeeds due to other elements elsewhere, with warm, interesting characters and a charming, likeable sensibility pushing his movie into what can only be regarded as just a damn fine, if overly cheesy, time at the flicks. 

With the superbly talented Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) taking the leading role as Paige, her iconic accent and emo-inflicted personality immediately offers an element of depth thanks to a central performance which manages to completely immerse you in the journey she undertakes from the rocky roads of Norfolk to the absurdity of the big stage in the sun soaked shores of America. Whilst the film revels in portraying the ills of a Rocky style training camp and the drill sergeant-esque manner from a rather finely tuned supporting performance from Vince Vaughn (Brawl in Cell Block 99) as Paige's talent scout and mentor, Merchant never seems to forget the core family unit which Paige leaves behind back home, and whilst Pugh is undoubtedly the leading star, the screenplay also balances the effect her newly found fame has on her brother, Zak, as portrayed by Jack Lowden (Dunkirk) whose dreams of capturing the world's imagination on the biggest platform available are soon crushed as he watches his younger sibling take the road to stardom instead. With scene stealing supporting comedic roles from the always reliable Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) and Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), Fighting With My Family of course oozes saccharin sweetness and cheesy sentimentality, but when a film is made with enough heart and soul to bypass such flaws, the end result is and hour and forty minutes of good old fashioned lovey-dovey entertainment, even with some rather egoistic cameos from Dwayne Johnson. 

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: Slaughterhouse Rulez

"That Hole Is A Gateway. And It Leads, Straight Down, To Hell. Now, Who Wants To Buy Some Drugs..?"

Juggling the role of front-man for the psychedelic rock band, Kula Shaker, alongside recently venturing into the world of cinematic endeavours, the multi-talented Crispian Mills reunites with Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible - Fallout) after the 2012 independent horror comedy, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, with Slaughterhouse Rulez, a similarly genre bending creature feature which combines The Inbetweeners style laddish humour with a St. Trinian's inspired backdrop which sees Finn Cole's (Peaky Blinders) northerly Don Wallace reluctantly attend the titular upper class school, the militaristic, private education palace full with inner social class turmoil and overseen by the rather exuberant Headmaster as played by Michael Sheen (Apostle). Whilst Pegg himself can relate to starring in arguably the greatest British horror comedy of all time in the form of Shaun of the Dead, Mills' second feature unsurprisingly fails to come anywhere close to Edgar Wright's masterpiece, instead offering a strange concoction of Doctor Who inspired science fiction, political commentary and B-movie splatter, resulting in a ninety minute headrush of a movie which in parts is thoroughly enjoyable and laugh-out loud funny, but at other times, completely loses its' way and slowly wanders into territory bordering on irksome, but with some of Britain's best acting chops on show, Slaughterhouse Rulez is still amusing enough to pass the time. 

With the bulk of the narrative focusing on the wretched school life entwined within the confines of the titular cathedral of knowledge, Mill's screenplay begins in interesting fashion, introducing both Cole's streetwise and savvy newcomer and Asa Butterfield's (Hugo) kooky, alcohol and cigarette dependant, Willoughby Blake, as the central duo of the piece who quickly fall upon the insidious doings of a renowned fracking company who have been tasked with digging out the corpulent supply of shell gas kept under the school's ground. Cue the nod to the Doctor Who serial "Inferno" from 1970 in which a mining disaster breeds unknown evil hostiles from beneath the surface of the earth and that's pretty much the entire second half of Mill's movie, just without venturing into alternative universes and apocalyptic doom. Whilst I am all for witnessing the sight of a drug-laden, hippie Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) and violent, flesh hungry cave dwellers ripping endless hordes of cannon fodder to shreds within reason, Mills fails on a fundamental level to hold the shakey lines of genre crossing at a steady beat, resulting in a movie which not only feels way too long come the hour mark as the screenplay begins to run out of ideas good enough to hold the attention of its' audience, but one which is neither scary or threatening, resulting in Slaughterhouse Rulez essentially being a feature length back-end episode of Torchwood with occasional slices of comedy gold and a Michael Sheen in his most camp and scenery chewing film role thus far. 

Overall Score: 5/10

Film Review: The Festival

"I Just Want To Go Home, Have A Proper Shower And A Poo..."

Whilst the huge success of The Inbetweeners television series brought national fame in abundance to the show's leading four stars and is undoubtedly still a show which can be watched time and time again without wearing out, the transition from small screen to the cinema in the two feature length movies which followed ultimately failed to adhere to the same level of consistency which was evident in the series. Returning to similar roots once again, director Iain Morris, one of the co-creators of The Inbetweeners, re-unites with Joe Thomas in The Festival, a similarly crude, coming-of-age and undeniably British comedy which utilises the backdrop of the UK's muddy festival scene for rampart teenage mischievousness and absurd cringe-laden set pieces, and whilst Morris' latest does indeed suffer at times from a similar effect to The Inbetweeners movies by being a feature length film which stretches its' central idea a little too far and may have benefited more by remaining on the small screen, is still a thoroughly charming and exceedingly funny one hundred minutes spent in the company of talented actors who know how to present the trials and tribulations of youth in the best way possible. 

With Thomas essentially playing a lesser gelled incarnation of his character from The Inbetweeners in the form of Nick, a recently dumped, awkward graduate whose path to redemption comes in the form of a trip to an un-named festival alongside best friend, Hammed Animashaun's (Black Mirror) in an attempt to cure him of his newly found romantic blues, the opening exchanges of the movie play in a very familiar fashion, evidenced with the added inclusion of Hannah Tointon (The Inbetweeners) as Nick's love interest, with rather inappropriate sexual and bodily fluid gags all resulting in the sense of embarrassment audiences felt watching similar events on The Inbetweeners the first time around. As soon as the action begins to unfold in the titular wasteland of illegal drugs, annoying kooky campers and bass-drive music however, the scenario slightly changes for the better, adding in familiar feelings of bohemian peril for those privy to the ways and means of like-minded festivals which result in a wide range of laugh-out loud situations which are boosted by the natural chemistry between the fictional friendship between Thomas and Animashaun. When the movie does eventually begin to falter around the hour mark, resulting in a concluding forty minutes which lessen on the hit-rate of jokes and focus instead on more of a redemptive arc for the leading duo, the narrative weaknesses do unfortunately rear their heads, but thanks to the willingness of the film's leading stars to show their private parts and be thrown in mud when asked on cue, The Festival is the ideal partner to kick off the annual summer delights of warm cider and sweaty teenagers. 

Overall Score: 6/10

The Worlds End - Quicky Review - SPOILERS

A triumphant return to the Cornetto trilogy by the threesome? This is certainly debatable.

As far as stories go, The Worlds End is quite an outlandish tale. A typical alien invasion uncovered by the most obtuse group of people on a weekend of downing pints across 12 pubs, or as they call it - The Golden Mile. Throughout this, Simon Pegg causes endless amounts of trouble and uncovers this invasion. Thus leads to them trying to complete the Golden Mile while staving off the hordes of "Blanks". It sounds fairly straightforward, yet the character back stories are fairly complicated. These backgrounds really affect each other and cause endless amounts of trouble, one of which that is most notably is Gary King's (Simon Pegg) drinking problems.

As a comedy, it was fairly good. A collection of jokes which made you giggle and a few made the cinema roar with laughter, yet nothing hugely substantial. The other side of the coin is the action portion of the film. It is dramatically sped up and it easily noticeable, but it is aggressive, full on and just great fun. It's also nice to see that Nick Frost played a different style of character in this instalment. Starting off as a dead beat ass with no job and no life causing controversy among the group in Shaun of The Dead, following it up with a dead beat cop with little understanding of full on police work but a love for violence to end up as a non-alcoholic whose life appears well and is still a strong, tank of a man.

Speaking of actors, the rest of the fairly large cast acted extremely well and it was a present surprise to find out the Pierce Brosnan had a role within the story for a few scenes.

Visually, there are very little special effects apart from the occasional face lighting up, a piece of modern art and a large incident at the end, so for what it is, they are good and stage effects and lighting were executed perfectly, especially at the end with a haze of oranges, blues and blacks that filled the screen and wisp gently across. The music and sound side was also very good. I'm still trying to locate the trailer music for its massive bass drops, but the music kept an powerful roar throughout, that set scenes up perfectly.

As a part of a trilogy, it is certainly the weaker of the bunch. It wasn't as stupid and over the top as the rest of the trilogy and appeared the action side of the story took a lot of the priority and then a few inner squabbles between the group that took the movie from comedy to a drama. I do recommend you see it and many of you will enjoy, but I think it shall get a 7/10. It's funny but takes itself a little too seriously at points and could have done with a few more jokes. Sorry for another quicky review but its been a a few late nights and early mornings!
(PS - It uses the word C**T. If you don't like this, you may have a little trouble dealing with the movie.)

The World's End

 Trailer Analysis: The World's End 

"Analysis is probably a better phrase about what I'm writing about rather then review"   

So here it is, the final movie of Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy "The worlds end". If you haven't seen the other two, I really recommend you do, both "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot-Fuzz" are amazingly entertaining and damn right hilarious.

"20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realise the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries" (The World's end official Facebook page)

Edgar Wright (director), Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back once again with the final addition to the Corntto trilogy. However this time they are joined by a few more additions to the cast, such as Martin Freeman who was in Hot-Fuzz for a few scenes but luckily he is playing a bigger role this time as Oliver; one of the pub crawlers, I'm greatly looking forward to seeing his performance. Also including Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine, David Bradley and the talented Eddie Marson. All of these amazing and well known actors in one production, is sure to be an awesome show and I can't wait.

Now it wouldn’t be a Cornetto film if there wasn’t a pub involved and what a way to finish the series with a good old pub-crawl. In an IGN interview, Simon Pegg claimed that their films are very British. Pubs are British and they are a part of our culture, so it makes sense to make films around pubs. 

This film has a lot more computer animated effects then their other films. With all of the glowing eyes and robots this could be influenced by "Paul" which they released back in 2011. The effects are not bad or brilliant by avatar standards but this is a British comedy film, I'm not expecting anything big like that, but its still good to see. 

I am glad that they have kept some of the traditions from there previous films such as the pubs but also some of the comedy scenes, such as the fence hopping at the end of the trailer, which fans of the trilogy would have immediately recognised, but still tweaking it to keep it original, perfect. But they also keep that pub violence against a mass of people which I love, for example in Shaun of the dead it was zombies, hot-fuzz the village cult and now robots looks awesome.

So the film comes out on July 19th and I will defiantly go see it in the cinemas to give you all a full review. "So prepare to get annihilated and a little hungover".  

Also check out this trailer which a bit more dialogue: