Film Review: Brightburn

"You Are Different. After Your Dad And I Got Married We Prayed For A Baby For So Long. One Night, Someone Listened..."

Sold as the movie which shows what would happen if the mighty Superman went bad, Brightburn is the latest cinematic baby from Guardians of the Galaxy director, James Gunn, who returns to the genre of horror in a production capacity once again after the horrendously violent and ideas-laden, The Belko Experiment from 2016. Directed by the relatively unknown, David Yarovesky, and featuring a screenplay from Mark and Brian Gunn, the cousin and brother of James, Brightburn is a rare cinematic case of a movie which knows the boundaries of its' central idea and simply runs with it for just long enough to stretch out an entire feature film, a very knowing and impressively gruesome B-movie horror which in some ways, fits the ilk of late 1970's horror genre classics as it arrives, shows its' hand and then gleefully leaves, all within the refreshing space of just over ninety minutes.   

Set within the titular town of Brightburn, Kansas, Yarovesky's movie begins with a blistering pace, introducing both Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) and David Denman (Logan Lucky) as loving married couple, Tori and Kyle Breyer, whose wish for a child of their own is soon granted upon them when an alien spacecraft crash lands into their nearby woods carrying what seems to be a male infant who they readily take in as their own. Cue a twelve year time-jump, and such an infant has now grown into the form of Jackson A. Dunn's Brandon, an intelligent, lonesome outsider who not only seems to have taken fashion advice from both Damien and Danny Torrence from The Omen and The Shining respectively, but also soon realises that he may have a bigger, and more violent, purpose on Earth, contrary to the attempts by his parents to keep him as human as possible. With a satisfyingly nasty streak and bearing a similar sort of nihilism seen within Gunn's previous R-rated project, The Belko Experiment, Brightburn may lack any form of tangible substance, but what it lacks in depth it more than makes up for in good old fashioned genre madness, and whilst Yarovesky's movie won't linger for long in the memory, the impressive horror elements and a sharp technical nuance mean that the American's big screen directorial debut is fun whilst it lasts but nothing more. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

"Emmet, You've Gotta Stop Pretending Everything Is Awesome. It Isn't..."

When it comes to 2014's The Lego Movie, it is fair to say in retrospect that everything and everyone involved with such a movie was indeed particularly awesome, with my own personal view at the time of its' initial release verging more on the side of caution when contemplating a feature length movie based upon those tiny multi coloured blocks that really hurt your feet when accidentally stepped upon. With the movie blossoming from the much welcome mix of critical and financial success therefore, including the added impotence of journeys into the realm of equally successful spin-offs, including the ridiculously entertaining, The Lego Batman Movie, which remains my personal of the series so far, here we are again with The Lego Movie 2, the inevitable animated sequel which sees Phil Lord and Christopher Miller drop from directorial duties as they boast both a production role and a screenplay for Trolls and Shrek Forever After director, Mike Mitchell, to work around. With the first film famously featuring a central twist in which we see that the lives of our yellow faced friends are actually being controlled by the hands of Will Ferrell and his playful son, The Lego Movie 2 takes matters a step forward as we see the young sister of the family now being allowed to play with the seemingly endless pool of Lego, resulting in Chris Pratt's (Avengers: Infinity War) Emmett being heart and centre of a series of utmost destruction which turns his world into a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max inspired war zone. 

With Emmett attempting to remain as the same old, happy-go-lucky everyman amidst a wasteland of negativity, he is soon called into action after Elizabeth Banks' (Power Rangers) Lucy is kidnapped alongside a group of fellow heroes in order to satisfy the ambiguous wishes of Tiffany Haddish's (Night School) Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi, the shape-shifting ruler of the wonderfully named, Systar System. Sounds bonkers right? And The Lego Movie 2 is just that, a bizarre but highly comical animated adventure which successfully manages to balance the right amount of cinematic appeal to both older and younger audiences, with the colourful, playfulness of the visuals and the smirk-inducing slapstick guaranteed to keep the children in the audience entertained, whilst the array of constantly smart and well-timed comedic gags and slight, off-hand knowing film geek references, including digs at particular film franchises and comic book heroes, are worked effectively into the narrative in order to make the more mature audience member giggle with glee. Whilst the film does struggle to contain the steady hit-rate of comedy throughout its' slightly misjudged one hundred minute runtime, a weakness which also affects the pacing of the piece, particularly around the halfway mark, The Lego Movie 2 is a worthy successor to a movie which I can admit to being wrong about first time around, albeit one which fails to land the same kind of punches The Lego Batman Movie managed to do. Maybe more Batman next time. You can never have too much Batman.    

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: The Happytime Murders

"If Shit Gets Crazy I'm Gonna Go Crazy As Shit..."

Whilst Jim Henson will always be primarily remembered for his work on The Muppets and the subsequent legacy the American's famous puppetry has left on culture across the world, his subsequent work on a wide range of cult classics including the likes of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth has meant the transition into film-making has always been one of great success, one which has revelled in a genre of storytelling which has always catered for the younger viewer in terms of tone and sensibility. With The Happytime Murders however, Henson's takes a turn to the dark side with an overly crude and obnoxiously vile R-rated work of trash which sees the staggeringly woeful talents of Melissa McCarthy (Life of the Party) team up with Bill Barretta's Phil Phillps in order to solve a number of puppet-related murders within a Los Angeles which has learnt to co-exist with puppets and humans alike. Cue awful elongated sexual gags involving crazed imagery and out of control bodily fluids, unnecessary swearing and simply terrible dialogue, Henson's foray into the darkness is a hollow, vacuous and totally despicable work of awfulness. The horror, the horror. 

Whilst the likes of Team America: World Police has shown that puppetry and X-Rated comedy can indeed go hand in hand to very successful ends, Trey Parker's 2004 comedy is The Godfather of modern comedy in comparison to The Happytime Murders, a so-called "film" which seems absolutely thrilled with the fact that puppets have been allowed to say swear words and have demonic-esque sex upon the big screen for an audience who undenaibly deserve more than just immature filth which happens just for the sake of it without any real purpose or justification for its' existence. With McCarthy continuing to baffle and perplex regarding just how such an awful actress seems to continue to get constant work, and even with the likes of Life of the Party and The Boss in her awfully sterile back catalogue, nothing is close to the sheer suicide-inducing rankness of her latest venture in which once again she uses overly rude slapstick to attempt to raise laughs from an audience who in my particular screening were completely silent throughout. On the upside, the one saving grace of The Happytime Murders is that I am not alone in my utter disdain for a movie which deserves the utmost disrespect and derision from everyone who pays money to see it. Complete and utter worthless nonsense that doesn't even deserve to be written about. 

Overall Score: 1/10

Film Review: Power Rangers

"The Answer To What Is Happening To You Is Here. You Five Are The Power Rangers..."

Of all the many facets of my well-nurtured youth between the mid 1990's and the early years of the 20th century, Power Rangers was the pretty much the last thing I personally had in mind to be reincarnated and re-imagined for the purpose of reaching out to a modern-day audience, yet here we are this week reviewing a movie which not only conjures up a youth-infused opinion regarding the sheer awesomeness of 1995's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a film which featured the iconic presence of Paul Freeman as Ivan Ooze and in an adult-fuelled retrospect, isn't as awesome as originally thought, but also begs the question where Hollywood will eventually stop when it comes to flogging and remaking as many footnotes of entertainment that they possibly can. Featuring a primarily youth-infused cast such as Me, Earl and the Dying Girl's RJ Cyler and The Martian's Naomi Scott, each battling for screen time against not only their similarly aged peers but the famous figures of both Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Banks, Power Rangers is a tiresome and wholly predictable CGI-fuelled mess which can't decide whether it wants to adhere to a Nolan-esque level of maturity or come across as just an overly corny cheese-fest, resulting in a movie which bears similarities to the latest adaptation of Fantastic Four in all the worst possible ways.

Straight off the bat, Power Rangers suffers from a fundamental flaw of having five leading characters who aren't only ridiculously underdeveloped but are just outright annoying, with introductions ranging from a criminalised youth who finds spare time to wreak havoc on the local town to a bitter bully who thinks it's fun to sex shame her friend and assault her boyfriend whilst wondering why each of these relationships goes downhill rather fast. Although I understand there is a level of flexibility within a narrative which centres around superheroes and aliens but it takes even the most optimistic of audiences to accept that the five youths portrayed on-screen are indeed the best humanity has to offer. Aside from monotonous central characters, Power Rangers suffers too from the same illness which has raged Michael Bay and Zak Snyder movies for years by including a final act which can only be described as an amalgamation of Man of Steel and Transformers in the worst way possible, utilising awful CGI in creating foes which not only come across as spitting images of the watchers from Darren Aronofsky's Noah, but are as threatening as a battery powered furby.

Whilst the contractual duties of both Cranston and Banks are both adhered to in some form, both appear and act in ways which can only be seen as dollar-ringed, with the former literally doing absolutely nothing in the twenty seconds he is on screen both in physical and digital form, whilst the latter taking the form of the villainous Rita Repulsa, a simply terrible villain whose penchant for gold infused items can only be regarded as a metaphor for Banks' appetite for a Power Rangers signed cheque, thanks to a performance which bears similarities to Eddie Redmayne's camp-fuelled monstrosity in Jupiter Ascending, just without a sense of memorability. Power Rangers ultimately is two hours of film-making recklessness which you won't get back and being aware of the film-maker's promise of at least a SIX movie story arc, perhaps we can live in the hope of their first offering being indeed the worst of the bunch. In conclusion, 2017's Power Rangers is the type of movie in which you leave longing for the ripeness of a 1990's Ivan Ooze in order to push it into a realm of enjoyment which is severely lacking through almost two elongated hours of dullness. Not for me.

Overall Score: 3/10

The Lego Movie! - Review - Possible Spoilers!

Lego stands as one, if not the greatest toy(s) in history. Everyone will remember playing with it at some point in their life and it's creative pliability made it branch across the ages. It's this extensive creativity that has continued to evolve to encompass boardgames, video games, theme parks and now a film! The wide access to Lego makes this movie an instant box office success, but does the movie stand up as a quality piece of entertainment to other audiences. Obviously, The Lego Movie is aimed at children. It's a bright, colourful adventure with light humour that screams a child film that will deter many teenagers/young adults from seeing it. As I'm still a big kid inside with a lot of nostalgia, I felt I needed to go. Upon walking into the cinema, it was filled with children. I avoided looking at how many of the snotty things were actually around me but could easily hear the muttering of what felt like hundreds but could have been one. But, you know, one is enough.

Anyway. The movie is geared towards the younger audience through everything it does. The inclusion of Jonah Hill, Morgan Freeman, Charlie Day and Will Arnett appear more of a gimmick towards nabbing a few extra ticket sales from fans of those involved. It's likely that the voices could have been done by other people without bringing in A list actors to fill the gaps. Jonah Hill doesn't even have a big role so it feels as if the money spent on him could have been used to extend the length of the film. However, being that the movie isn't based upon something already created, Lego didn't have the foundations of Star Wars or Lord of The Rings to develop upon like their games.

Being that the film is targeted at children, the story could have suffered. However, it plays out much like a childs imagination would have played it out. The story of little Emmet in a world so advanced, he blends into the background and stumbles into a deadly situation that leads him on a rather enthralling journey that defies a lot of preconceptions. An evil, corrupt government and police force is quite a shock in a U rated film. Teaching that police are not always these good people is very difficult for children to understand for kids but nowadays the older generations are seeing this more and more. It's an interesting choice that plays towards the demographic but maintains its child exterior. Obviously, there was going to be a love story and I noticed that this connection beats out so many like it that have cropped up in live action. Plastic figures with limited facial movement/expression had more emotion on their faces than Kristen Stewart and a better love story that Twilight could have ever produced.

Lego stands upon the idea of fun. It's a ride that isn't trying to provoke philosophical thoughts. The action was fast, a little jarring at points with the aggressive cuts but flows the way everyone imagines. It's a genuinely good film with so much hard work and dedication that has to be applauded. Perfect for children and is entertaining to everyone else, apart from the god awful selection of music. That truly was horrific. But otherwise, the movie deserves an 8/10. It's a kids movie made by Lego, what the hell did you expect me to say!? Tune in for Monuments Men review and Titanfall videos over the next week!