Film Review: Morgan

"I'm Starting To Feel Like Myself..."

Oh nepotism, how we love you. It is regrettable that after losing track in recent years when it comes to replicating the real quality of his earlier projects such as Blade Runner and Alien, director Ridley Scott has somewhat diminished in terms of reputation, particularly when examining his recent work such as Exodus: Gods and Kings, Robin Hood and The Counsellor. Yes, The Martian was pretty solid and a welcome return to some kind of form, yet it is still rather disheartening to think films as radical as Blade Runner may indeed never break out onto the big screen ever again. In the meantime however, Ridley's knack of tackling sci-fi genre conventions has seemingly passed on through the gene pool and onto Luke Scott, whose directorial debut in the form of Morgan, no, not a documentary on Morgan Freeman, is the canvas to showcase whether the son has even half of his father's early talent. Part Ex-Machina, part Terminator, Morgan has the necessary blueprints to regard itself as a work of science fiction, yet its' ridiculous plot and complete lack of subtlety, particularly in its' shambles of a final act, means Morgan is a lukewarm start to the ventures of baby Scott. 

Although Morgan boats an extensive amount of talent in terms of its' casting, with Kate Mara, Toby Jones, Paul Giamatti and Brian Cox all managing to squeeze in to the films' 100 minute run-time, The Witch's Anya Taylor-Joy takes the titular role of the synthetic-based humanoid in her stride, pulling out a performance that if served by a sharper and tighter script, may have been something of better consequence. Although the film does hark back to classics of the genre, some even made by father, Ridley, Morgan fails on some level by not entirely deciding on what it really wants to be, much like its' titular character. Is it a horror? Is it an action thriller? Is it a bit of both? Who knows, and with the fast-paced editing of the latter act of the film not allowing one frame to settle, you leave the cinema with not only a head-rush bit with a sense of something that could have been better served if not for a more careful design. The main talking point of the movie may indeed be the final revelation, yet for anyone with a brain cell, it can only be regarded as wholly predictable, so much so that it shouldn't even be regarded as a full 360 degree twist. Maybe a 40? Anyhow, Morgan isn't the decades' Blade Runner and although guided by the no-how of his father, Luke Scott's debut is unfortunately one to forget. 

Overall Score: 4/10

Film Review: The Martian

Life On Mars

When the first theatrical trailer for Ridley Scott's new sci-fi movie The Martian was released to the world a few months back, the two-minute clip was so spoiler-heavy in terms of some rather important plot points, you could have been easily forgiven for not choosing to pay to watch what essentially might have been a two and a half hour extension of the ideas highlighted in that particularly short amount of time, and when a following six-minute trailer for the film was released soon after the first, I completely blocked it in order to save some of the excitement for the film's release. If you were one of the many who chose to watch The Martian in its' six-minute release format, I can't imagine you could have been overly impressed by the complete package, with it, like Everest recently, suffering from the now-familiar problem that its' core shocks and storylines were overtly spoiled before the film's release in a vain attempt to sell the film to the masses via that of a trailer, something of which detracts the film from the excellence it could have possibly become.

When the NASA led Ares III manned mission to Mars is forced to retreat due to heavy storms and dangerous weather, astronaut and acclaimed botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is left for dead on the planet after being hit by debris, yet soon after, NASA realise Watney is in fact alive and well on the planet after surviving the accident and is now attempting to survive on Mars for the duration of time it takes until the next scheduled NASA mission lands. Using the wide range of expertise of both Watney and those back on Earth, the two combine in an attempt to accomplish the miracle of getting Watney back home, a destination all of 33 million miles away. Directed by the genius that is Ridley Scott, creator of two of my favourite films of all time in the form of Blade Runner and Alien, The Martian proves to be one of his better works in recent times but ultimately fails to touch the greatness of some of his most prestigious work whilst feeling indirectly and unfortunately familiar to the masterpiece that was last year's Interstellar, with the film even going so far as having some of the same actors (Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain) whilst having an unbelievably uncanny plot point that derives straight from last years' Nolan epic (Matt Damon being stranded alone on a alien planet).

Areas in which the film succeeds is the way in which Damon's portrayal of the lone astronaut Mark Watney is strongly handled with him neither passing into the realm of annoyance or boredom and instead being an interesting and well-developed character throughout, whilst the interaction of geeks and gargantuan space-filled characters on Earth was also highly enjoyable with a wide range of unexpected comedic content, aside from the inclusion of Donald Glover's Rich Purnell whose annoying ten-minute inclusion almost ruined every scene in which he was present. Excellent also was the presentation of the desperate wasteland that is Mars, with Dariusz Wolski's cinematography being on tip-top form when confronted with the planet's desolate surroundings. The main problem in my opinion with The Martian, aside from it being around twenty-minutes too long, was there was no real sense of threat for the character of Mark Watney, with it being blindingly obvious that his escape from Mars was set to be a successful venture, something of which was rather disappointing, whilst the sometimes cheesy script and dialogue (That Iron Man scene...Eugh) resulted in The Martian being a solid return for Sir Ridley, but nothing actually that spectacular on the face of it. 

Overall Score: 7/10

The Fantastic 4 - Sinking Faster than The Thing on the Titanic

Dan - With my local multiplex offering the chance to watch a preview screening of Marvel's new Fantastic Four, a reboot of the widely panned Chris Evans/Jessica Alba films released ten and eight years ago respectively, it was one of the rare occasions in which I went into a high-profile release without a sense of whether it was set to be a masterpiece or a complete turkey due to the miracle that is social media, something of which I believe results in a much more reliable and fresh opinion in one's opinion of that film. One thing that has always impressed me about the abundance of Marvel movie releases and the subsequent Cinematic Universe, harking back to the release of Iron Man in 2008, is that throughout its long list of releases, all the films within such a universe have always tended to be in the positive spectrum when it comes to a critical stance, where although some are much better than others (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy), nearly all have also been rather solid, if rather formulaic, without one seemingly sticking out and declaring itself as the black sheep of the bunch. With the release of Fantastic Four however, although not being a part of the MCU in terms of the bigger picture, it seems that this particular run of good Marvel fortune has seemingly come to an end, with Josh Trank's reboot being a complete mess from beginning to end, resulting in a movie on par with the widely panned original releases ten years previous.

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When boy genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller, Whiplash) is given the opportunity to further his studies into the boundaries between parallel dimensions by Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey, House of Cards), he and his team of like-minded scientists including Sue Storm (Kate Mara, House of Cards), Johnny Storm (Micheal B. Jordan, Chronicle) and the reluctant Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell, Dead Man's Shoes) successfully gain access to the parallel world known simply as "Planet Zero". One drunken night, Reed, Johnny, Victor and close friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell, Jumper), decide to be the first to venture into the unknown plant and inadvertently witness Victor seemingly fall to his death, whilst bringing back with them a range of powers that have not only changed their own genetic structure, but that of Sue who was attempting to help them return from Planet Zero. With their new-found powers and abilities, the team not only must adjust to their radical changes, but the threat of impending doom from something they thought they had once lost but has now returned with a vengeance. So, in terms of the premise of Fantastic Four, it is pretty much what we all expected, with a redesign of the origin of our four main heroes and an influence of their biggest enemy, Doctor Doom, in an attempt to give them their first taste of heroism, all of which was given away in the rather overplayed trailers. So with a solid, if rather unsurprising, story to helm it, Fantastic Four was never set to be anything as good as previous superhero entries but the completed picture can only be classed as something of a complete disaster with a wide range of faults and issues that succeed only in making it one of the biggest disappointments of the year so far. 

With recent superhero movies attempting to redesign the notion of what such a film entails, helped by the success, both critically and financially of The Dark Knight trilogy, Fantastic Four seemingly has decided to completely disregard such ideas, with the added depth that has been highly prevalent in recent comic-related movies missing entirely, resulting in characters that I don't overly care for and a story that is completely off the chains to say the least in terms of its' narrative structure and discipline, evidenced by a final act that not only is rushed completely off its' feet, but has no dramatic or logical impact whatsoever aside from the fact that a big-budget Hollywood movie like this has to have at least some sort of scene whereby destruction and only destruction is the key concept. I mean come on guys, did your editing or production team simply bypass watching the film as a whole before releasing it, or were they just not bothered about the critical appeal of such a film and instead took the Micheal Bay approach in that big explosions and fire results in making big money? Well if that is the case, unfortunately for you, Fantastic Four will not take Avengers-like levels of cash and instead will only be seen for what it is; a fantastic disaster from start to finish which not only will anger cinema viewers who will no doubt pay to witness such drivel, but the Marvel fans who were waiting for at last a solid take on one of their most beloved comic creations, something of which they definitely did not get this time around. 

Adding to the mediocrity of Fantastic Four is its' fundamental contradictory in what it wants to see itself as. Is it a dark, adult, comic film in similar vein to Watchmen, or instead a light-hearted, comedic take on the superhero movie like Guardians of the Galaxy? Too many times the film seemingly flipped in and out of its' true intentions with cheesy one liners being offset with scenes of shocking violence whilst the calm and collective beginning being transposed with a shoddy collapse at the films' conclusion all resulting in a film, which although must have had good intentions, seemingly being made without a care in the world, something of which angers me deeply as lover of film. The one saving grace of the film? The cast, with Miles Teller leading the way in doing the best he can with the script he was handed, whilst it is good to see Reg E. Cathey getting more of a shot in Hollywood after his heart-braking performances in House of Cards. But in terms of the good, that's just about it. Ironically, director Josh Trank has come out this week stating that the reason for Fantastic Four sucking so much is due to the input and influence of 20th Century Fox, and that his version would be receiving much better reviews if not for their desire to edit and change. Well Mr, Trank, if that is the case then you have my sympathies, but for now we are left with a shoddy, out-of-place, disaster-ridden raspberry that not only will be quickly forgotten, but will hopefully be lost in the vaults of cinema completely and left to die along with its' equally as bad predecessors ten years previous. Want my advice? Watch Ant-Man again.

Overall Score: 3/10

Pete - Lets put it this way, Fantastic 4 is as fantastic as an empty bottle of Fanta filled with lukewarm piss. Its as if Josh Trank wanted to make the worst Marvel movie in history. How someone can actually enjoy this, I will never know. We can't even class it as a child's entrance film into the MCU because there is so little substance, you may as well let your kid watch paint dry.

Let me make one thing clear, these actors suck. They suck more than Kim Kardashian. The casting was just awful. Pretty much every incarnation I've seen of FF source material has involved adults. The group were of a serious age to be taking part in space age opportunities, not borderline psychopathic children that where clichés from High School Musical. The teen angst drips from this and it has to be one of the most painful experiences I've ever had the displeasure of watching. Oh, big spoiler here, Doom dies. Deader than a doornail. Sucked into some power hunger hole that tore him into pieces and it was probably for the best. Hopefully he will never come back to grace the screen with his awful costume that looked more like a morph suit than it did the real Doom. Don't insult the source material with such an awful depiction. Although, this is honestly the only action that happens in the film. The last 10 minutes of the film is occupied with it while the rest of the experience is tortuous attempts at storytelling.

Dan speaks of the indecisiveness of the plot from gritty and dark to 'comedy' and I couldn't agree more. Every attempt at character development was removed, deaths were played off as something not relevant and these "incredibly smart children" are fucking morons. I've watched many movies in my time and more so with the creation of this blog but I don't think I've ever felt like throwing faeces at the screen and swinging out like fucking Tarzan 10 minutes into a film. Sure, The Counsellor was bad, like real bad; but Christ, at least they tried.

You know what made it worse? The acting. Even the extras were awful. Often you would catch one staring at the camera lens like its some sort of mythical creature with a creepy grin slapped across their face. Obviously they're just extras who somehow landed a quick role in the flick but when the main cast can't type on a keyboard in a convincing manner, is almost an indefinite sign that they have no idea what they're doing. At least put a little effort into what you are 'doing'. Perhaps write an essay on how you're such a terrible actor and that you really don't want to be on a film that everyone will see because you don't want your reputation to sink any further into the precipice of Josh Trank's vacant mind than it already has.

I'm not going to argue against Dan. I'm in fact, going to congratulate him on such restraint. The awful composition, shots, music, story, acting, character development, design and visuals were trash for a Marvel film. Perhaps if 20th Century Fox actually worked with Marvel on this, we could have finally got the FF we deserve but noooooo. I'm almost tempted not to give this a score. Giving it score would acknowledge is actually exists and I don't feel like it even deserves that. Dan's score says it all and heed these words, we do not want another. I saw you had it scheduled, stop it. Now. For the love of god, kill it off now and please don't fuck up X-men...

OVERALL SCORE - 3/10 - DO NOT WATCH

News: Fantastic Four Trailer

The Fantastic Four Return! 

With the orgy of film trailers that have been released this week featuring Star Wars, Batman Vs. Superman, and Star Wars: Battlefront, Marvel must have felt a bit left out as now we have the second Fantastic Four trailer to indulge in too! Check out below.