Film Review: The Mountain Between Us

"I Don't Wanna Die Up Here Because You Are Too Scared To Take A Risk..."

Based upon the novel of the same name by American author Charles Martin, director Hany Abu-Assad takes his first big budget chance with The Mountain Between Us, a romantic survivalist drama featuring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba in the leading roles as journalist Alex Martin and Dr. Ben Bass, strangers who are stranded in the heartland of the wilderness after the crash of their charter plane. Whilst survivalist tales are not uncommon, with the likes of The Revenant and even It Comes at Night showcasing the genre-bending facet of the much explored narrative of man's basic instinct to keep on going, Assad's movie suffers primarily from a nonexistent level of threat, one which weakens the majority of the film's first half, and a central relationship from two of Hollywood's most bankable actors which not only lacks any sort of meaningful authenticity but is completely vacant of romantic chemistry, resulting in a schmaltzy mess of a movie which even manages to make its' icy surroundings feel placid and dull. 

With Elba and Winslet sinking to levels thought impossible in terms of their performances, Assad uses the first ten minutes of the movie to complete the setup, placing our leading duo in a contrived state of confusion which results in them deciding to fly together upon the creakiest, most unsafe charter plane possible, and whilst the inner shot of the plane's inevitable descent onto the snowy terrains below is actually pretty well done, the subsequent ninety minutes is an exercise in mediocrity, with the narrative choosing to repeat the same notions over and over again without any sense of threat or belief that our leading heroes will subsequently perish, with the movie coming across instead as the type of saccharin-flavoured money grabber which even decides to save the dog when the whole audience was expecting a mutt-flavoured barbecue to occur upon the screen. With no sense of peril or real meaningful characterisation, the concluding portion of the film's romance-based section is inevitably gooey and pointless, and whilst The Mountain Between Us isn't the worst example of survivalist dramas, it is certainly the tackiest. 

Overall Score: 4/10

Film Review: Sleepless

"Whatever You're Aiming At, Make Sure You're Prepared To Kill It..."

Whilst I enjoy B-Movie action trash as much as the next man, with a vast amount of films I consider to be my cinematic "guilty pleasures" each having an embedded sense of action-packed silliness at their very heart, Sleepless, directed by Swiss filmmaker Baran bo Odar and starring Jamie Foxx in the leading role is the type of bullet-ridden garbage which really makes you wonder whether any of the people involved in the creation of such a masterstroke of mediocrity really wanted to go through with its' release. With a sloppy and cliched narrative at its core, gridlocked around some god-awful dialogue and drowse inducing set pieces, Sleepless is an obvious and cheap attempt to recreate the recent success of films such as the underground sensibility of the first Taken movie and the gritty and violent representations of action in films such as John Wick and The Raid, but with nothing whatsoever original or interesting to note, Sleepless is a grade-A shipwreck of a movie which although isn't as head-bashing in retrospect, is still a film which makes The Rock look like Citizen Kane. 

After playing two sides of the law for almost two years in a supposed deeply disturbing and tension-filled undercover operation to bring down the top dogs of Las Vegas's drug scene, Jamie Foxx's Vincent Downs becomes a red-laced target for Dermot Mulroney's high-stakes businessman Stanley and Scoot McNairy's Rob Novak, a highly strung criminal drug-lord with serious daddy issues, after stealing a large quantity of cocaine with corrupt police officer partner Sean Cass, portrayed in almost non-existent fashion by the annoyingly named T.I. What follows for a seemingly never-ending 90 minutes is endless chase scenes, an overkill of unnecessary violence and one of the worst character introductions I have ever seen when Gabrielle Union's character is crow-barred into the concluding act in the most pitiful and woefully written way possible. With an ending which sets up the possibility of a potential sequel, Sleepless ironically and inevitably is the type of movie which has the confounded effect on its' audiences which completely contradicts its' meaningless title with Odar's first high-profile release more likely to send you into fits of snoring rather than keep you entertained and feel like you've spent your well-earned money well. 

Overall Score: 3/10

Film Review: Insidious: Chapter Three

Alone In The Dark

Looking back at the career of Leigh Whannell so far, there is a solid enough amount of evidence to argue that the hugely annoying norm of "cattle-prod" cinema that infests our cinemas and classes itself as "horror" nowadays is essentially pretty much his own doing. Bit harsh, yeah, but with writing credits that include the Saw series, Dead Silence, and the first two Insidious movies manifesting from his own mind, I think I have a partial leg to stand on. Maybe not, but hey, when you delve a bit deeper and look at his constant affiliation with James Wan, the argument gets a tiny bit stronger when we see The Conjuring and Annabelle added to that list. The plot thickens. But enough of my hatred anyhow, as now we have Insidious Chapter 3, a new film in the series of "horror" flicks that should  never have got past the first film, which in all honesty I did kind of actually enjoy but was then subsequently angered by the turgid sequel that swiftly followed. But now we have a prequel to the first film once again featuring Lin Shaye who reprises her role as eerie ghost whisperer, Elise Rainier, but the real question is, how much of a boring, stinker of a film can it possibly be? Well to be honest, its' kinda spooky. 

When teenager Quinn (Stefanie Scott) disregards all previous rules of horror flicks and attempts to contact her dead mother, she inadvertently makes contact with a creepy, seemingly asthmatic demon who seeks to bring her to the depths of hell or wherever that place is that looks a lot like the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks, without the dancing dwarf of course. Enter Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) who is subsequently tasked with preventing such evil deeds from occurring whilst avoiding her own fate of death from the rip-off  Jennet Humfyre, i.e. the Woman in Black. Even in the plot synopsis you can see how many cliches, rip-offs, and stolen scenes are used to lesser effect within Insidious Chapter 3, with elements of The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and The Shining all appearing in some shape of form during its' 90 minute runtime, but there were certain moments in which it proper freaked me out and where the use of a cattle-prod was put to one side for the time being, and for that I can safely say, was particularly pleasing to see. It may not have been as good as the first, but Insidious Chapter 3 is leagues better than its' predecessor making it a solid, if rather similar, entry into the horror canon. 

Overall Score: 5/10